NC1801

FEATUREAI
AI: CLOSING THE CYBER
SECURITY SKILLS GAP
WE ARE FACING A MOUNTING
CYBER SECURITY SKILLS CRISIS.
MATT WALMSLEY, EMEA
DIRECTOR AT VECTRA
EXPLORES HOW TECHNOLOGY
CAN PUT US BACK ON TRACK
The velocity and diversity of cyberattacks
is relentless and continues to
grow. As businesses transform to
become digital-first, the rate of innovation is
surpassing some company's security
capabilities as legacy systems and humanled
practices fail to keep pace. Yet the
challenge remains, and there is a distinct
lack of skilled security professionals
available to fill the gap.
With a steady stream of stories dwelling on
the latest data breach casualty, there is
much unease concerning business security,
with speculation rife across global media.
With a company's reputation at risk when,
rather than if a breach occurs, business
leaders are starting to accept cybersecurity
as a board-level issue.
THE CYBERSECURITY SKILLS
SHORTAGE
Demand for skilled cybersecurity
professionals is growing, therefore it comes
as no surprise that we are facing a
recruitment crisis and a significant lack of
talent. The cybersecurity job market is
huge, yet the amount of top talent
available to fill these roles is relatively
small. In fact, Frost and Sullivan reported
just last year that there are more than
350,000 unfillable cybersecurity jobs
expected in Europe alone in the next four
years. There seems to be no sign of
improvement any time soon.
Faced with multiple unfilled positions, as
well as the challenge of retaining existing
talent, Chief Information Security Officers
(CISOs) need to look at alternative solutions,
and these must include AI and machine
learning if they are to overcome the persistent
shortage of skilled people.
FACING REGULATION HEAD ON
As of May 2018, businesses will incur fines of
20 million euros or up to four per cent of their
global annual turnover, whichever is the
greater, if they do not disclose a data breach
to the Information Commissioners Office
(ICO). The cost of this alone could force some
companies out of business and into
administration. To continue to innovate whilst
remaining secure and effectively protecting
customer data, businesses need to shift their
approach from reactive to proactive if they are
to better protect the value that derives from
their digital data, services and reputation.
Facing fresh challenges as the number and
complexity of threats and attacks increases,
businesses need to look at alternative
approaches if they are to get ahead of the
ever evolving nature of data breaches and
cyber-attacks. Humans alone cannot handle
the sheer volume of this intricate workload.
As cybercriminals become more
sophisticated, automating threat detection
and response using AI, machine learning and
advanced behavioural analytics will allow
businesses to dramatically reduce the dwell
time granted to an attacker once inside the
network. It also ensures a remediated response
before an attack builds itself into a high
severity incident creating long-term damage.
BRIDGING THE GAP WITH AI
Implementing AI and machine learning
technologies will help to make a considerable
contribution to bridging the cyber skills gap.
Too much resource is being spent with
advanced cybersecurity professionals doing
lower-level, mundane monitoring tasks,
meaning that less time is spent on higher
value artisan security tasks. Investing in
security automation is increasingly a must for
forward thinking organisations.
By automating time-consuming attacker
detection and response duties, skilled
analysts can switch their focus on prevention
and remediation, making the threat-hunting
processes all the more efficient and effective.
AI technology is also helping to increase
the number of qualified cybersecurity
professionals and lowering the technical
barriers of entry into the profession,
allowing less trained individuals to be
effective on the front lines of the
cybersecurity battle. As well as this, it allows
existing cybersecurity professionals to move
up-market and leverage AI to find more
complex attack scenarios before they do
harm. The next security engineer you hire
could likely be an AI. NC
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