Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Services are two areas of Information Technology that pose threats and present benefits to organizations. Sometimes the threats outweigh the benefits and vice versa, but it’s important for organizations to educate employees about cyber security risks and rewards.
AI is growing exponentially in popularity. With different developers coming out with new services becoming available, AI is being normalized in a sense for not only organizations but the day-to-day user of technology.
“With innovations in 2023 such as ChatGPT and other AI solutions becoming readily available, there is now a lot more awareness and acceptance of the use of artificial intelligence in achieving various objectives. One such objective is securing personal or organizational information assets, largely referred to as cybersecurity.” (Forbes).
Cloud services are also growing exponentially within businesses and companies. There are many cloud services available and different companies utilize different cloud services.
“A number of cloud services are readily available for businesses to improve their day-to-day operations, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and other Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers. These services have allowed organizations to expand and grow their business. But while AWS and GCP excel in helping enterprises deploy Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products, they may not offer sufficient protection for data stored in the cloud.” (Rewind).
Therefore, AI and cloud services are both cyber trends that pose cyber security risks and rewards. Knowledge is power in this scenario and being aware of cyber security risks and rewards is essential in the protection of organizations.
AI Rewards: Automated Detection and Response
Automated detection and response can be useful to organizations in that AI can respond more rapidly to threats than human employees.
“One of the actions that security operations teams take to respond to a cyber threat is to block the originating IP address of the identified threat. These IP addresses are sometimes obtained from email headers, threat intelligence tools and platforms. AI can automate this process by identifying, analyzing and blocking confirmed malicious IP addresses. This can greatly improve the efficiency of the operations teams.” (Forbes).
AI Risks: Cyber Hygiene and Human Error
Cyber hygiene is essential in avoiding human error. Cyber hygiene is the proper navigation of technology and the ability to avoid and prevent cyber-attacks. Human error causes more cyber security issues than one would initially think.
“What happens when the gatekeeper, whose role it is to secure the main gate entrance to the house from external attackers, becomes your weakest link? Say they leave the gate open and fall asleep or simply collude with the criminals. This is what happens when AI technology that is employed for cyber defense activities is not managed with cyber hygiene rules such as regular updates, security by design at the building phase and testing.” (Forbes).
Cloud Rewards: Efficiency and Cost
The cloud provides greater efficiency in technology and lowers costs of information technology due to its ability to store data and implement software.
“The cloud delivers more flexibility and reliability, increased performance and efficiency, and helps to lower IT costs. It also improves innovation, allowing organizations to achieve faster time to market and incorporate AI and machine learning use cases into their strategies.” (Google).
Cloud Risks: Cyber Attack Vulnerabilities
Cloud services also lend to vulnerabilities in cyber security if proper cloud security is not implemented.
“Since the cloud is easily accessible, it becomes accessible to people with ill-intent. To top it off, cloud environments are connected, which means if there is an attack, the damage spreads like wildfire. Some of the most dangerous instances of cyberattacks can include hyperjacking, DoS attacks, and hypervisor infections.” (Rewind).
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Sources:
Rewind. https://rewind.com/blog/cybersecurity-and-cloud-computing-risks-and-benefits/
