The role of AI in securing the modern digital workplace
As digital transformation changes how we work and do business, keeping our systems secure has become more important than ever. With more enterprises using hybrid work models and connected systems, the number of vulnerabilities is growing rapidly.
Today's digital workplaces have many devices connected to the internet, including Internet of Things (IoT) devices and mobile gadgets. These, along with data being constantly shared, create a complex network that is hard to protect. This complexity has led to a huge increase in security alerts, making it tough to spot and respond to potential threats.
No security team, no matter how big or skilled, can handle the sheer number of alerts coming from these various sources. The need for flexible work and anywhere access adds to the challenge. Companies can't just lock everything down without affecting employee morale and productivity. That's why artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming crucial for making security operations more efficient and effective. AI helps organizations manage the complexities of today's digital world with greater ease and assurance.
Let’s examine how AI is transforming digital workplace security.
Improving threat detection and response
One of the main challenges that security teams face is the huge amount of data and alerts that they have to process and prioritize. According to a report by IBM, the average enterprise generates over 200,000 security events per day, of which only about 20% are relevant. Moreover, the average time to identify and contain a breach is 280 days, which can result in significant financial and reputational losses. .
AI can help internal security teams overcome these challenges by automatically analyzing large volumes of data, filtering out false positives, and identifying the most critical threats. Just as large language models (LLMs) can help generative AI process information, understand context and find answers, AI-driven security can use similar techniques to understand the context and intent of malicious actors. This enables cybersecurity specialists to quickly detect and respond to complex and stealthy attacks like advanced persistent threats (APTs), ransomware or zero-day exploits.
AI can also help cybersecurity teams automate and orchestrate their response actions, such as isolating infected devices, blocking malicious domains or notifying users. AI can leverage predefined playbooks and workflows, or suggest the optimal course of action based on historical data and best practices. This can reduce the manual workload and human errors, and improve the consistency and quality of the response.
Security teams are people, too!
Much has been written about how technology (lately, generative AI) can enhance the employee experience for non-technical teams. However, it is equally vital to recognize its transformative impact on the digital workplace experience for security professionals.
The main causes of stress and burnout are staffing shortages, high volumes of alerts, pressure to meet performance metrics, and the lack of career development opportunities.
AI can help technical teams reduce stress and burnout by automating routine tasks, such as triaging alerts, collecting evidence or generating reports. This can free up time and resources for security analysts to focus on more complex threats, investigations and strategic activities. For example, they can spend more time redesigning core operational processes, ensuring that collected data is of the highest quality, or developing new skills and capabilities.
New technology can also empower cybersecurity analysts to become data scientists and security architects, leveraging AI to create and optimize their own models and solutions. This can increase job satisfaction and retention, and foster a more innovative, collaborative workplace culture.
AI can help technical teams reduce stress and burnout, free up time and resources, and understand employee behavior to identify risky behavior and create training to improve security habits.
Taking a proactive approach to security
One of the ultimate goals of security operations is to shift from a reactive and defensive posture to a proactive and strategic one. This means that instead of waiting for attacks to happen and responding to them, cybersecurity teams can anticipate and prevent them, or even deter and disrupt them. This improves the resilience and maturity of security operations, and aligns them with the business objectives and priorities.
AI can help cybersecurity teams by providing analytics that predict and prevent future threats. For example, it can analyze large amounts of data to predict future attacks and suggest the best solutions and strategies based on risk, impact and cost. It helps security teams use their resources wisely and show the value of their security operations.
But aside from that, AI also plays a key role in understanding employee behavior. It can sort through huge volumes of usage data to identify actions that make the organization vulnerable. Pinpointing risky behaviors or instances when security protocols are ignored helps cybersecurity teams create training and awareness programs that improve security habits.
AI can also highlight areas where user practices need improvement. It suggests changes and real-time reminders to encourage better security practices, making employees active participants in protecting the organization.
Finally, AI can monitor how well your strategies are working. It tracks user adoption and compliance, showing which methods are effective and which need adjustment. This makes AI a crucial tool in the digital workplace — for both technical security and fostering a strong security culture.
Moving forward with AI-driven digital workplace security
AI is creating more secure workplaces by enabling faster, more accurate threat detection and response, reducing analyst fatigue and burnout by automating routine tasks. It is also enabling enterprises to take a proactive, human-centric approach to security. By adopting AI-driven solutions, security specialists can improve their efficiency and effectiveness, as well as their work-life balance and job satisfaction.
AI is not a silver bullet that can replace human intelligence and expertise. Rather, it is a powerful ally that augments and complements human capabilities, decision making and skills. As organizations embrace AI, it’s important to learn how to leverage its strengths and overcome its limitations. Armed with this understanding, it can be harnessed to ease the burden on security teams and make our digital workplaces more secure.
Posted on: October 21, 2024
Alicja Lewandowska
Head of ITSM, Atos Central EuropeMember, Atos Research Community
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