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bugs and mitigate potential security flaws in legitimate software. This is especially important where developers make use of open-source and other third-party software modules in their software supply chains. As a result, an increasing number of cybersecurity solutions, including those from Fortinet, already use AI to assist in identifying vulnerabilities and prioritizing their resolution. Similarly, with the volume of security data expanding as the number of digitally connected devices and applications continue to grow, security teams that are already thinly stretched due to the global skills shortage can leverage AI-powered automation to interpret the torrent of raw data from across their networks and determine and execute the most appropriate response to anomalous or malicious activity. Traditional stovepiped cybersecurity solutions, point products designed to protect against specific categories of threat, often fail to stop today’s more sophisticated multi-vector attacks. Consequently, solutions that make use of AI to help correlate indicators of compromise from multiple sources of data and integrate defensive
activity across disparate security solutions are better able to deal with AI-powered attackers. However, despite the clear and numerous advantages of AI-powered cybersecurity, there is another, more insidious problem lurking below the surface. Even if patches for known software vulnerability exploits are made available to users of those products, patches must be applied to be effective. The term ‘N-day vulnerability’ refers to the number of days (N) since a vulnerability was disclosed and a patch was released, and many users fail to apply patches in a timely fashion – or even at all. An attacker doesn’t need to develop a novel (zero day) exploit when lucrative targets fail to apply existing patches to resolve known vulnerabilities. AI can help enterprises with vulnerability management, identifying vulnerabilities and even applying patches, but too few organizations currently avail themselves of such tools.
on the digital battlefield with strong, adaptive cybersecurity will be essential. But only through collaboration among industry, governments and other public bodies can we counter the scale and complexity of today’s AI-powered threat landscape. Companies such as Fortinet continue to innovate and deploy AI-enhanced solutions commercially, enabling governments to focus on the technically challenging and fast-moving national security challenges of AI-powered automation while leveraging commercial cybersecurity capabilities. This means choosing partners with a track record of AI innovation (both generative and predictive) and who are committed to ‘secure by design’ – the belief that strong security must be integral to the entire life cycle of IT products and services, from initial design through deployment and use.
The road ahead The AI genie is out of the bottle and will change our world forever. To harness its power for good, optimizing autonomy and automation
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