What can AI really do for cybersecurity? 

We’re now well into an era where artificial intelligence technology thinks and acts like a human - but in an efficient way. And we know that AI technology has already made significant contributions across various fields.

In this blog, I’m going to focus specifically on the major role AI is beginning to play in enhancing cybersecurity, with a handful of examples of where it’s most effective.

Security should be considered a top priority in all cloud environments. To combat advanced cyber attacks in cloud environments, cloud providers offer different AI-based security solutions. So with this in mind, we’ll cover some of the Microsoft AI based security solutions and how organisations can leverage these kinds of services.

What’s available in the cloud?

Cloud based, AI-driven cybersecurity services provide advanced defence mechanisms by leveraging machine learning and advanced algorithms. These systems, trained with decision-making logic crafted by security experts, can react to threats and vulnerabilities much faster and more effectively than human responders. The speed and accuracy of the AI will help the environment to combat against advanced cyber-attacks.

AI-powered identity services

Securing access to cloud resources requires a deep understanding of business and regulatory requirements and available technology in the environment. AI-based Microsoft Security Copilot can help security professionals automate common tasks, helping troubleshoot faster and design secure workflows.

For example, we can ask Microsoft Security Copilot in simple conversation language and we can use it for intercepting sign-in and audit logs and get insights based on the context. It offers a risk summary, remediation steps, and recommended guidance for each identity at risk to help us respond to identity risks quickly. We can also make use of Copilot to build an ID Governance lifecycle workflow.

AI network security

Network and web application firewalls are critical for many organisations to protect their network infrastructure and applications from threats and attacks. Azure WAF and Azure Firewall offer advanced threat protection using default rule sets as well as detection and protection against sophisticated attacks using rich Microsoft threat intelligence and automatic patching against zero-day vulnerabilities.

However, when security analysts need to perform an investigation against any identified threats in Azure Firewall, they spend hours writing custom queries and perform lots of manual steps to retrieve information about nature and impact of threat based on multiple factors. But the AI based Copilot analysts just need to ask about the threat’s information, and Copilot will provide all the required details. With the speed of AI, manual effort is massively reduced and the reaction time to any kind of attacks and vulnerabilities is cut.

The Azure WAF integration with Copilot security enhances the ability of security professionals to conduct contextual analyses of web application detections and API security attacks, delivering results within minutes. This integration facilitates thorough investigations of security threats, including examination of triggered WAF rules, analysis of malicious IP addresses, and evaluation of SQL Injection (SQLi) and Cross-site Scripting (XSS) attacks blocked by the WAF. Additionally, it provides clear, natural language explanations for each detection, making the data more accessible and understandable.

Need help understanding security and AI?

The integration of Microsoft Copilot will enable organisations to have AI enabled security products, which will help the organisations better defend themselves from attackers while keeping their data completely private.

However, it’s not easy to understand exactly what’s available, how these tools best integrate within your setup, and how to maintain, update and stay ahead of this evolving landscape. You might be asking questions like:

• What cybersecurity tools should I really be using?
• How does AI enhance threat detection and response in cloud environments?
• What are the benefits of using AI for identity and access management?
• How does AI integrate with my existing cybersecurity infrastructure?
• How can AI support compliance and regulatory requirements?
• What are the cost implications of implementing AI-based security solutions?
• How do AI-driven firewalls and WAFs compare to traditional security solutions?
• What do I need to be aware of and what’s next for AI and cybersecurity?

If you’re asking questions like this, and want to learn more about AI-based security in Microsoft environments, contact Nordcloud’s Pawel Haubus to learn more.