Artificial Intelligence (AI)  is a hot topic that will continue to change many industries as we know it — including IT and cybersecurity.

According to the UK’s National Cyber Security Center, AI will increase the volume and heighten the impact of cyber attacks by enabling hackers to evolve and enhance existing tactics and techniques. Threat actors already use AI to varying degrees, e.g. in reconnaissance, social engineering, phishing, and malware creation.

Threat actors can use AI to quickly analyze exfiltrated data to adapt their tactics. Meanwhile, the commoditization of AI-enabled capabilities in criminal and commercial markets will make it easier for hackers to access these technologies, lowering the barrier for cybercriminals to carry out attacks. 

But it’s not all doom and gloom. The same advanced AI technologies are also used in cybersecurity to help organization strengthen their defense and mitigate new cyber threats. Let’s examine the evolving role of AI in cybersecurity and what these developments mean for MSPs. 

AI and cybersecurity: What the new technologies mean for MSPs

As AI cybersecurity threats increase, new AI cybersecurity solutions are also emerging. Here’s how MSPs may use AI for cybersecurity to enhance their capabilities and better protect their clients:

1. Identify attack precursors

AI technologies, like machine learning, deep learning models, and predictive analytics, can analyze massive volumes of data and identify patterns quickly to facilitate early detection of anomalies, malware, ransomware, and suspicious activities. They can trigger alerts promptly to help MSPs isolate an event and minimize damages.

For example, enhanced.io’s Open XDR based solution Stellar Cyber, an Open XDR  (extended detection and response) platform, uses AI and machine learning technologies to automate data processing, event correlation, threat detection, and response. It allows MSPs to become more proactive in threat hunting to prevent breaches before they happen.

2. Enhance threat intelligence

Generative AI cybersecurity solutions can go beyond identifying potential threats to helping analysts better understand them without performing time-consuming techniques like complex query languages and reverse engineering. These algorithms scan code and analyze network traffic to generate rich insights into the behaviors of malicious scripts or other threat vectors and predict their trajectories to help security experts stay ahead.

3. Predict emerging cyber risks

MSPs may use tools that combine predictive intelligence with natural language processing to analyze news, articles, and studies on emerging cyber threats. Then, you may leverage the insights to identify trends, curate new datasets for training threat-hunting algorithms, and focus your resources on strengthening systems and processes most vulnerable to emerging attack techniques.

4. Strengthen authentication mechanisms

Help your clients implement advanced authentication techniques with AI-enhanced access control mechanisms. For instance, biometric authentication (e.g., facial recognition) reduces reliance on traditional passwords, which are more likely to become compromised. You may also use AI to analyze login patterns and behaviors to identify suspicious sign-in attempts and stop breaches in their tracks.

5. Facilitate risk assessment

Machine learning algorithms help analyze client infrastructure, code, and configurations to identify weaknesses, allowing you to address vulnerabilities proactively. You may also use AI tools to support risk-based vulnerability management by understanding the severity of an issue and the likelihood of an attack. The insights will help clients prioritize and allocate resources effectively to protect their systems.

6. Improve operational efficiency

You may use AI cybersecurity solutions to automatically create detection rules and continuously optimize and validate them based on new information like attack variations. The technology also helps you take automation to the next level — going beyond standardized and repetitive tasks to analyzing and contextualizing alerts. It can interpret results to turn insights into action, streamlining decision-making and shortening response time.

7. Automate threat and incident response

AI tools help MSPs continuously analyze network traffic, user behaviors, and system logs to automate near-real-time responses. These include blocking malicious IP addresses, shutting down and isolating compromised systems or user accounts, and blocking potential phishing attempts (which have become more sophisticated due to generative AI) to prevent threats from spreading.

8. Faciliate investigations

AI cybersecurity solutions analyze logs, correlate events, identify root causes, and automate investigation workflows to simplify processes and reduce the burden on your team after a cybersecurity incident. These tools may also suggest appropriate remediation actions and help you compile lessons learned to inform continuous improvement and strengthen a client’s defense to prevent future breaches.

9. Minimize human errors

Human errors and oversights, such as system and application misconfigurations, may create vulnerabilities and cause data breaches. By automating these routine tasks with AI, MSPs can minimize mistakes while improving cost efficiency. Moreover, automation helps streamline workflows and allows your team to focus on high-level threat analysis — taking targeted action to respond to incidents instead of parsing through vast amounts of data.

10. Create SOC policies

MSPs may use generative AI to help clients draft security policies and structure roles and responsibilities. It helps automate decision-making based on pre-defined rules to streamline workflows and eliminate bottlenecks. The technology also supports data-driven SOC governance, using security-related analytics and predictions to align an organization’s strategic decisions with security requirements.

AI and Cybersecurity: How to incorporate AI into your security stack

Will AI replace cybersecurity experts and put security operations on autopilot? 

No, your clients won’t whip up an AI-run SOC overnight. On the contrary, more organizations will rely on their MSPs and MSSPs to help them leverage AI cybersecurity solutions to stay ahead of advanced threats.

However, AI technologies aren’t the be-all-end-all. Human expertise is still essential for interpreting recommendations and deciding on the best course of action based on unique circumstances, especially when insufficient data prevents the algorithms from providing conclusive responses (which is a common occurrence). 

Plus, having the right tools is just one piece of the puzzle. You must support them with effective processes and a team of seasoned professionals to realize the potential of AI in cybersecurity.

When you partner with enhanced.io, you get the best of both worlds. As a top Stellar Cyber partner, we provide access to the cutting-edge AI-driven Open XDR platform while supporting the technology with the right people and processes to ensure fast and accurate threat assessment, incident response, reporting, and more.

Learn more about our SOC as a service solutions and get in touch to see how we can help you stay at the forefront of the cybersecurity industry.

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