.png)
The rate at which cyberattacks are occurring in the world today is astronomical compared to years past. With that being said, the increasing rate at which threats are occurring presents a very difficult challenge for cybersecurity teams and their organizations as a whole. Cyberattacks are usually aimed at assessing, changing, or destroying sensitive information. Efforts also include extorting money from users or companies via ransomware or interrupting normal business processes. The increased efforts behind cyberattacks over time have caused a shift in cybersecurity companies switching from a more reactive approach to a proactive approach. Therefore, companies are no longer waiting until a cyberattack occurs to react yet rather anticipating that cyberattacks will occur and preparing in advance for potential attacks, ensuring that companies are able to better mitigate the threat and its impact on their business.
A successful cybersecurity approach has several different focus areas that help prevent an organization from attacks. These focus areas can be divided equally into protection, detection, and mitigation.
One trend in particular that is impacting the cybersecurity landscape as a whole and altering the way businesses protect, detect, and mitigate attacks is Artificial Intelligence (also known as AI). AI is currently one of the hottest topics across multiple industries and this is for good reason. Artificial Intelligence is essentially a method of making a computer, technical robot, or software program think intelligently like the human mind. This is achieved through studying the patterns of the human brain and analyzing the mind's cognitive processes. This innovation has developed intelligent software and systems that have resulted in astounding technological advancements. Most people are constantly hearing the positives AI serves and how AI can be leveraged in the world of cybersecurity to make our work and lives better. But what we aren't being exposed to is how AI can be weaponized and used maliciously to attack companies as a whole as well as the individuals that make them up.
Historically, hackers have had to be extremely advanced and possess skills specified for malicious attacks. Additionally, specified skill sets and intense research efforts made the process of executing a successful attack much more timely, lasting weeks and even months at a time. Now the advancements in AI this has opened the field of cyberattacks to a wider variety of people that no longer need to possess the highly specific skills it once took before to execute cyberattacks. Not only do people need to be less advanced but they also aren't taking nearly as long to execute attacks because AI has shortened the time needed to develop malware. This presents a large threat to cyber organizations all over the world and encourages strength for the protection of services, detection of threats, and mitigations.
On the other hand, in the same way, that threat actors can leverage AI to create and launch attacks, Cybersecurity organizations can also use AI to further investigate attacks by helping detect and protect their organization against these risks. Companies can enhance threat detection by using AI algorithms to differentiate between fraudulent users and authorized users. Additionally AI has analytical speed that surpasses human efforts allowing software to point out abnormalities and potential vulnerabilities in the fraction of time it would take a human operator. With the help of AI we can also improve bot defense and help eliminate phishing attempts through the intense scanning of keywords and individual indicators of attacks. Overall, it is important to have clear objectives when using AI in cybersecurity in order to ensure that resources are used effectively, interact with multiple different AI algorithms to verify generated results, and monitor results of AI systems to ensure accuracy and performance expectations.
Cybersecurity designs are being implemented across a wide variety of industries including aerospace and defense software. Along with the cybersecurity landscape, we can also use artificial intelligence within the aerospace and defense industry to enhance the protection and accuracy of engineering processes. Aerospace and defense companies are using artificial intelligence to better utilize resources through fuel efficiency, traffic control, aircraft development, and training (Collimator, 2023). Furthermore, machine learning has the ability to balance the complexity of air traffic control systems, predict codes that assist development of different hardware and software embedded in aircraft, and reduce costs and dependency on advanced skills to build software that helps maximize time and resources (Collimator, 2023).
In conclusion, when interacting with Artificial Intelligence cybersecurity posture has shifted from being reactive to now proactive. Cyber events are occurring more frequently and depending on how well companies are prepared for the attack will determine how quickly companies can detect potential threats and mitigate the attack. The involvement of AI has significantly increased the number of bad actors that we can weaponize and use for AI purposes but AI can also be strategically used as a counter-defense when utilized correctly. Additionally, Artificial Intelligence is becoming more popular in the aerospace and defense industry over time and we are beginning to recognize that machine learning platforms are crucial in order to increase the efficiency and safety of aircraft systems.
.bmp)