AI in cybersecurity transforms threat detection and strengthens defense

As artificial intelligence continues to mature and cyber threats evolve in sophistication and scale, AI in cybersecurity is emerging as a revolutionary technology that is reshaping the way Organizations defend their digital environments.

Beyond traditional defense mechanisms, AI improves efficiency by automating complex workflows, reducing human labor, and improving the speed of threat detection and response. As enterprises increasingly rely on distributed computing, AI’s ability to scale security operations becomes critical to ensuring resilient and proactive defense strategies. With increasing attack vectors and the demand for more robust security postures, AI is quickly becoming the cornerstone of modern cybersecurity infrastructure.

TheCUBE will be there to talk about AI in Cybersecurity at mWISE 2024.

“To simplify the problem, you have a data problem, you have a knowledge problem and then you have some kind of human action problem to solve in security operations,” he said. Pierre Bailey (pictured, left), vice president and general manager of SecOps, Google Cloud Security, at Google LLC. “You kind of have to master all three of those things to have a modern security operation.”

Bailey was joined by Steph Hay (right), Head of User Experience, Google Cloud Security, Google, while speaking with CUBE Research John Fourier And Savannah Peterson has mWISE 2024during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s live streaming studio. They discussed how AI in cybersecurity is revolutionizing traditional security operations by automating processes, improving efficiency, and enabling faster and more accurate threat detection. (*Disclosure below.)

The role of AI in improving security operations

AI is improving traditional security operations by streamlining processes that have long been manual and laborious. For example, the ability to automate data source integrationStreamlining search queries and even helping create detection rules dramatically improves efficiency, Bailey said.

“We can start to create workflows, workflows that start to automate steps in the process, which today is a very complex set of workflows,” he said. “We’re always going to look at simplifying those experiences through the user interface. These were steps that used to take hours instead of days, but now they can be at your fingertips and happen very, very quickly, allowing you to react more quickly.”

The more collaboration and expertise a team can draw on, the better equipped it is to defend against cyberattacks. AI reinforces this by serving as a force multiplier – bringing together threat analysts, security operations teams and AI-driven tools into a cohesive defense system, according to Hay.

“It’s a team sport, and I think the convergence of the different roles, making sure you bring the expertise of a threat analyst and a SOC Level 2 analyst and maybe a cloud security practitioner… to be able to bring them together in a common experience is going to transform the SOC,” she said.

Looking Ahead: The Future of AI in Cybersecurity

In particular, integrating AI into platforms like Google’s Security Operations suite allows users to benefit from real-time expert insights. The ability to tap into external expertise—whether from Google’s teams or other industry leaders—adds an invaluable layer of defense, especially in complex or novel threat scenarios, Bailey said.

“Taking security operations as an example, you have to take that information and share it across your organization again, so you create a more credible basis for taking action to prioritize something,” he said. “I think you can have influence because you have better data and better information to share across an organization. I think it helps both ways.”

While AI offers considerable potential, the journey is still in its early stages. The ultimate goal is to move from assisted to semi-autonomous security operations. In the future, AI agents could be deployed to proactively hunt for threats, analyze attack patterns, and provide recommendations based on real-time data.

“It’s understandable because there are so many new risks. There are AI risks, rapid injection is a reality. Your company can make a promise to a customer that you can’t keep because they’ve deployed AI. All of those things are very legitimate concerns,” Hay said. “There’s a lot of hype around what AI does … and that’s because we need to deploy it responsibly. We still have a lot of work to do in that area.”

Here’s the full video interview, part of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE Research’s coverage of mWISE 2024:

(*Disclosure: Google Cloud Security sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Google Cloud Security nor other sponsors have editorial control over the content of theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE