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Cyber resilience in the age of artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is radically reshaping the digital landscape, and this transformation often occurs faster than organizations can adapt. Although it brings significant innovations to optimize and automate business processes providing a sea of opportunities, it can also be used as a sophisticated weapon by cybercriminals.
In this context, cyber resilience becomes a strategic imperative for organizations. Fortunately, business intelligence paired with exemplary practices can counterbalance and become your best allies in facing these new challenges.
When artificial intelligence increases the risk of cyberattacks
Artificial intelligence, when used for malicious purposes, amplifies the level of threat faced by businesses. It allows for personalized attacks, making them harder to detect. For instance, machine learning models analyze user behavior to create hyper-targeted phishing campaigns that seem incredibly authentic. Worse still, these attacks can exploit very personal details, significantly increasing their chances of success by appearing legitimate.
Even the smallest organizations are not immune, as AI-based tools automate attacks and allow thousands of organizations to be targeted simultaneously. Without any human intervention, every vulnerable target becomes relevant to hackers.
This large-scale automation capability continuously scans systems and networks to identify vulnerabilities before they are patched. Cybercriminals can thus exploit these weaknesses without businesses even noticing.
These risks are amplified and multiplied by the democratization and accessibility of these malicious technologies on the black market. These tools are available to individuals and groups of all sizes, including even those without any real technical skills.
Common Mistakes in Cyber Resilience
Despite growing investments in cybersecurity, some fundamental errors compromise the resilience of companies against cyberattacks. The main one remains the underestimation of critical informational assets. Not all data holds the same strategic value for a company, and poor mapping can create blind spots, preventing it from prioritizing protection efforts.
The second most important mistake is relying solely on backups. Although vital and indispensable, they are not enough. Without a comprehensive business continuity strategy, organizations remain vulnerable to data leaks and ransomware.
Furthermore, companies often develop recovery and business continuity plans that they do not test in real-life situations. These plans represent the last line of defense for an organization under attack, and neglecting these verifications can lead to an inability to recover, potentially putting the organization’s survival at risk.
Preparing Your Business for Cyber Resilience
Cyber resilience, like all information security strategies, relies on a proactive approach that integrates technology, business processes, and human skills. It goes beyond the technical scope as it requires a global vision, involving leadership and various business units.
These units must work in harmony with IT teams to identify critical interdependencies between processes, data, and systems. This collaboration allows for prioritization, avoids omissions, and ensures business continuity in the event of an issue.
Employees are still the weakest link in terms of cybersecurity. However, they can also become a major asset when they are aware of best practices such as password management and recognizing suspicious emails. Continuous training remains the foundation, and simulations help test reactions and adjust awareness programs accordingly.
Artificial Intelligence as an Ally of Cyber Resilience
Despite the risks it poses, artificial intelligence offers unique opportunities to strengthen cyber resilience. It allows you to fight on equal footing by monitoring network traffic and detecting anomalies in real time. Indeed, there are behavioral analysis algorithms capable of processing massive volumes of data to detect emerging threats. They quickly identify suspicious activities and block attacks before they cause damage. These tools can also identify and correct critical vulnerabilities and prioritize patches according to their risk level.
An effective backup strategy remains your best asset in case of disaster. Here, artificial intelligence facilitates data restoration through learning models capable of identifying and repairing corrupted files. It also optimizes recovery processes by minimizing interruptions.
Always keep in mind that your backup strategy must include offline copies to protect data against ransomware. These can “sleep” for several months before striking, so it is essential to be prepared for this possibility. Also, remember that your backups should be tested regularly to ensure their integrity.
Artificial intelligence solutions are constantly evolving and know how to adapt to new techniques used by cybercriminals, ensuring that protection is always up to date. Do not miss out on these advantages.
The Role of Your Technology Partners
Solution providers, such as ITI, play a key role by offering managed services and resilience analyses to strengthen the organizations’ posture. These collaborations also allow benefiting from the latest innovations in cybersecurity.
Companies thus have access to a team of certified experts in all areas who can:
- Carry out resilience analyses and backup assessments to identify gaps and provide precise recommendations to improve compliance and optimize your systems.
- Proactively manage your backups by daily monitoring of your systems, error management, and proactive restorations in case of problems.
- Enable rollbacks to previous versions in case of human error, incorrect configuration, or cyberattacks.
- Automatically identify and track sensitive files (credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc.) to detect and correct potential vulnerabilities.
These experts allow companies to strengthen their resilience and cybersecurity while simplifying the management and protection of sensitive data through a proactive approach and cutting-edge solutions.
What you need to remember
