Artificial Intelligence for Security

When we think of artificial intelligence to security, we often think of an extremely developed AI system hacking into computers to obtain information and contaminate the system. Such themes are commonly identified in various forms of media. Otherwise, people think of bots that are run by AI to make them seem more real for hijacking and voice phishing.

However, as much as artificial intelligence can be utilized to increase the risk of security, it can also be used to strengthen security systems. There are a couple of reasons why the use of artificial intelligence can be useful for increasing the quality of cybersecurity.

For instance, artificial intelligence can analyze large amounts of data at unparalleled speed. Such quick analysis can help to increase the diagnosis speed so that any security breaches can be resolved fairly quickly. This is important because the longer a computer system is exposed to malware, the more data can be leaked, destroyed, or rewrote. Another advantage of utilizing AI systems is the ability for automatic adjustment of different parameters to adapt to different situations. Such features are critical especially when it is hard for security systems experts to arrive quickly. A standard program is unable to adapt to changing environments: the system is static, meaning that it will retain all weaknesses that it has. However, artificial intelligence-based systems are more dynamic: they can adapt to existing environments, so there is an increased likelihood of better performance as well as increased efficiency for the initial setup. There may be no need for security experts to manually set up the system if the setup process is run by AI.

While these advantages do exist, artificial intelligence can also help to protect against frauds. For instance, American Express, an American car company, has implemented artificial intelligence systems into its security network for detecting frauds. For over 13 years, American Express has been using AI systems. When the system was first implemented, fraud rates decreased by 30%. At American Express, there is a constant system that monitors all transactions made by all cardholders. All of these payments are analyzed and stored sequentially, so any random geographical mismatch of card transactions can be identified as fraudulent activity. Likewise, the algorithm can create individualized consumption patterns to see if there are sudden trends that deviate from existing patterns to detect and estimate fraudulent activities.

In conclusion, artificial intelligence is indeed being steadily incorporated into our lives to increase security not just for our computer systems, but also for other various services.