How Significantly Has Artificial Intelligence Penetrated the Cybersecurity Market?

Editor's Note: Hamsa Srinivasan contributed to this article.

Most organizations have robust cybersecurity initiatives in place. However, it’s no secret that such initiatives are not fool-proof. As the sophistication and complexity of cyber attacks increase, application security needs to rely on dynamic processes that can respond to more significant, rapidly-evolving threats.

As the number of applications running on the cloud and mobile devices increases, security needs to be more pervasive and intelligent than ever.

Is that a tall order to fill? Yes, it is! However, developers are looking at artificial intelligence (AI) to add intelligent dimensions to their decision-making processes and help them accomplish more and ease their vulnerability remediation efforts.

A report titled "Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity Market by Offering" stated that the adoption of AI in cybersecurity market was estimated to be valued at USD 3.92 Billion in 2017 and likely to reach USD 34.81 Billion by 2025, a CAGR of 31.38 percent. Those numbers demonstrate the growing importance of AI.

Why and How Is AI Applicable to Your Development Efforts?

AI adoption for cybersecurity is known to help in many ways, including:

• Permitting you to quickly incorporate security protection into the SDLC process.
• Helping you to accelerate vulnerability detection.
• Improving your responsiveness to potential vulnerabilities.
• Helping you to prioritize key threats amongst the many that come your way.

Consult our Ponemon Study on AI and Cybersecurity

Our recent Ponemon Institute Study titled “The Value of Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity” discussed AI and its impact on cybersecurity with 603 IT and IT security practitioners in US organizations that had either deployed or planned to deploy AI as part of their cybersecurity programs or infrastructure. You can download a complimentary copy of our recent study here.

Study Recap

Here are key findings from Ponemon’s recent discussions with AI practitioners:

1. The primary benefit of AI was an increase in the speed of analyzing threats.

2. The secondary benefit of AI was the acceleration in the containment of infected endpoints/devices and hosts.

3. Because AI reduced the time to respond to cyber-exploits, organizations could potentially save an average of more than $2.5 million in operating costs.

4. In fact, 59 percent of respondents said that AI increased the effectiveness of their organizations’ application security activities.

5. Seventy-one percent of routine AI users vs. 60 percent of the overall study sample said that an important benefit of AI was the ability to deliver deeper security than if their organizations relied exclusively on their own IT security staffs.

6. When asked about the effectiveness of AI in reducing application security risk, 69 percent of routine AI practitioners said that those technologies had significantly increased or increased the effectiveness of their application security activities, compared to only 59 percent of respondents in the overall sample who said their effectiveness increased.

7. AI improved organizations’ ability to detect previously “undetectable” zero-day exploits. On average, AI users were able to detect 63 percent of previously “undetectable” zero-day exploits. In contrast, respondents in the overall sample said that AI could increase detection by an average of 41 percent.

With that in mind, you need to seriously explore the potential impact of AI on your development efforts. Feel free to share my article and encourage your colleagues to download the study, so you can evangelize AI in your organizations as well. Thank you!