As we continue to make life-changing advances in our technology, the possibilities for advanced technological support in our workplaces starts to widen.
Advanced technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI), are already starting to create a more efficient work environment in many industries around the world.
How can small- and medium-sized businesses profit from the onset of this new technological age?
With many industries relying on AI for more complicated tasks, here are four ways that AI can become a huge asset to SMBs.
AI’s ability to detect and respond to the increasing potential for cyberthreats is great for an SMB’s cybersecurity.
AI can speed up this detection process by rapidly cross-referencing different security data and alerts with a success rate of between 85-90 percent. Using datasets given to it by cybersecurity firms, an AI software can perform pattern recognition tasks that help it uncover malicious behavior within the SMB’s network faster and more efficiently than a traditional cybersecurity system ever could.
Additionally, an AI can be trained to analyze the micro-behaviors of ransomware attacks to recognize the attack before the ransomware even starts its encryption.
Once an AI software detects a potential threat to a network, it can reduce the workload for the cybersecurity analyst by prioritizing the areas that need attention and automating the manual tasks that the analyst usually performs. This allows the analyst to redirect their efforts solely on analyzing and dealing with the threat to the system.
Natural language processing is one of the most important things that an AI software is capable of doing to bolster your cyberdefenses.
With natural language processing, an AI software can automatically collect information from articles, studies, and research documents around the web on cyberthreats with the intention of providing the AI with insights into potential types of cyberattacks that it might face on a network.
The cybersecurity firm that manages the AI can then use the gathered information to calculate risk and predict threats.
This allows cybersecurity firms to stay updated on current threats and prepare for those threats accurately and effectively on the SMB’s behalf.
Another way AI can bolster our online defenses is by updating an authentication process that has been in use for a while.
Most companies have a security system in place to protect sensitive data that involves an authentication system with different levels of access to secure the more vital data from lower level employees as well as intruders.
This system can be compromised, however.
If someone with a high authentication level accesses that sensitive data remotely, it can be accessed by an intruder through the remote network.
AI seeks to remedy this by securing conditional access.
An AI system can use a multi-factor authentication program to create a global authentication network that alter access privileges based on location, network, and individual authority.
By using this method, the AI system will collect and analyze user information within the network that is being accessed. It will analyze things like user behavior, location, data being transferred to and from the system, and what device is being used to submit the data. This data will then allow the AI to alter that user’s access privileges to ensure that sensitive data is protected from intruders, even on remote networks.
The analysis of the user’s data on an SMB’s network allows AI to block intruders away from their data in real time.
All of these security measures require that the security system analyze incredibly large amounts of data as efficiently as possible. The critical analysis of that amount of data is a feat that the human eye is not capable of performing.
If nothing else, AI is a giant benefit to a network’s security simply for its ability to sift through all that data with ease.
An AI software’s ability to immediately read and understand, as well as give accurate alerts and suggestions in real time, is a giant advantage in a cybersecurity firm’s never-ending fight against hackers and malicious data.
Having a watchful eye that sees, understands, and reports back simultaneously and instantaneously makes guarding an SMB’s network so much easier.
Regardless of the application, it's plain to see that AI will continue to provide us with increased resources, at less cost and in less time.
For an SMB, the time and cost efficiency of AI-controlled programs can be a huge benefit
As our workplaces start to rely on technology more and more, SMBs can count on AI to become the ally that they sorely need in the fight to grow, and prosper.
If you need an ally to help manage your SMB’s information security needs, contact Integrity today.
