IBM announced that it launched beta testing for its IBM Watson for Cyber Security program.
IBM Watson For Cyber Security
According to First Post, more than 40 global clients in industries as varied as education, healthcare and financial services, have joined the beta testing program. Watson AI provides cyber security services to these companies. Among the clients are included Avnet, California Polytechnic State University, SCANA and Sun Life Financial, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Smarttech, the University of Rochester Medical Center and the University of New Brunswick.
According to the ZDNet, as part of the beta testing program all these companies are fighting cyber crime using Watson AI cognitive computing capabilities. The AI will help security experts to identify and prioritize various cyber threats. Thanks to the artificial intelligence, security analysts could make better and faster decisions.
IBM Watson supercomputer uses natural language and machine processing to extract the relevant data from huge amounts of information. Many security professionals believe that emerging cognitive technologies will make an important impact in the field of combating cyber crime.
The Future Of AI Cyber Security
According to Sandy Bird, Chief Technology Officer, IBM Security, implementing cognitive security technologies is still in its early stages. However, it is estimated that over the next three years this adoption will increase three fold.
During the next years, tools like Watson for Cyber Security will mature. While only seven percent of security experts are currently using cognitive solutions, these artificial intelligence (AI) based cyber security tools are expected to soon become pervasive in security operations centers.
IBM Watson can use its AI capabilities in order to determine if a security event matches with the behavior of any known cyber crime campaign or malware. Watson can extract the relevant background information in case that discovers any match. Then, it implements known approaches for tackling the cyber attack or malware.
By providing contextual information, the IBM Watson supercomputer can also help at identifying suspicious behavior. This will allow a security analyst to better evaluate the situation in order to decide if the suspect activity is indeed malicious.
Over thirty five billion security events are monitored every day by IBM security in more than a hundred and thirty countries. More than three thousand security related patents are owned by IBM.
According to Read IT Quick, the Watson for Cyber Security product went already through several revisions. The machine learning-driven software comes with embedded key functionalities that are enabling automation of the transactional work and other primary tasks carried out by security analysts. For instance, Watson can do the parsing the sheer number of system alerts raised during security operations, in a more effective and efficient way.
Additional data inputs are constantly being machine-learnt thanks to the artificial intelligence capabilities. The machine learning helps continuously build upon previous knowledge continuously.
A world of possibilities will open up with the transition of the IBM Watson for Cyber Security platform to the real world. The platform will become familiar with real-life scenarios, where the variables are and harder to control. This will prepare it to tackle real-life cyber threats, including DDoS, ransomware, malware and other forms of attacks.
