With the popularity of cloud providers in business spaces now, the way you do business is highly flexible and ambitious. With those cloud systems, though, comes the issue of security. Manual security measures just aren’t going to work here, so that’s why you’ll want to look into automating your security processes.
There are lots of benefits to doing so, and you’ll be able to really up your level of security. Here are just a few things that security automation can do, and why you should be looking into it now.
Identifying Future Threats
One of the best things about an automated security system is that it can identify and nullify any security threats without you having to stay on top of it. Over time, the automated system will be fed more and more information about the types of security threats out there. As it learns more, it will be able to spot the patterns much more easily than a human can, and so stop them more quickly, too.
With that pattern recognition, your security system will get so much better at identifying any future threats. That brings your business much more advanced protection, as in some cases it will be able to stop a threat in its tracks before you’re even aware that it’s a concern.
“AI is becoming more advanced every day, and that’s something that businesses are able to benefit from,” says Andrea Lee, a tech writer from Research Papers UK and Writinity. “Those advanced systems are able to identify threats in a minute amount of time, and protect you from them.”
Automatically Assess And Prioritize Threats As They Happen
If you’re trying to stay on top of security threats manually, then you’ll see that in today’s world, it’s a losing game. Threats pop up so quickly that you just can’t keep up as a human being. If you are trying to do it all with human staff, then you’re inevitably going to miss some threats. That’s going to lead to some threats slipping through, and that’s going to put your business at risk.
That’s why many are now turning to automated security systems, at least in part. You’ve already seen how they can automatically identify and nullify anything that can be a potential threat. As part of that system, it should be able to categorize those threats as they come in. When it does this, it will assess the level of threat that it poses to you. If it’s a high risk, then it will prioritize that threat and nullify it first to reduce the overall risk to you.
That’s something that you’ll want to have in your company's IT setup. No human is able to do this as quickly as your automated security system can. That offers extra assurance that you’re being protected against threats and allows you to assure your customers of the same. It’s especially important when you need to comply with global privacy laws around customers’ data.
Of course, your automated security setup will need to be put in place by humans in the first instance and fed the data it needs to protect you. If you’ve chosen the right AI to handle it, though, it will not take long at all to start getting to work. Plus, the more it works, the more it will learn and be able to identify those future threats.
More Efficiency With Less Human Intervention
One of the biggest reasons why businesses are using automated security AI is because it takes such a huge burden off of their human security staff. No matter how good the staff is, they can’t be everywhere at once. If they’re having to deal with every single security threat that comes their way, that’s going to make it harder for them to do the other, essential aspects of their job.
There is a lot of debate around whether using AI is putting people out of work, and many employees may understandably be worried if you start bringing in AI to work on the same tasks they’re currently doing. “In the vast majority of cases, AI cannot fully replace humans,” says blogger Adrian Law, from Draft Beyond. “Instead, the best use of AI simply takes the more routine and rote tasks off humans’ hands, so they can focus on other tasks that they need to do.”
This is how you should put the use of AI on your security staff. It’s essential, as they’ll be the people to monitor the AI and see what threats it’s tackling. They’ll also be the people to feed the AI the data it needs to start learning to identify threats.
Once the AI is up and running, that means your staff doesn’t have to handle these threats themselves day after day. They’ll still need to have some involvement, but they’ll also have time to handle other issues and ensure that they’re coming up with new ideas that will benefit the business as a whole.
It’s hard to argue with security that offers more efficiency over time while freeing up staff to work on tasks that are more complex and need more intervention. As a business owner, this is going to be one of the biggest benefits of using AI in your security.
Avoid Alert Fatigue
What is meant by the term ‘alert fatigue’? While you may not recognize the term, you’ll have experienced it for yourself in the past. Imagine you’re logging into your email from a new device, and you get a notification alerting you to the fact. These alerts are important; if you weren’t logging into your email, you would want to know about it. However, you know it’s you, so you dismiss the alert and carry on as you were.
Now, upscale this experience to your business as a whole. Depending on the size and scope of your business, you could be receiving thousands of notifications of potential threats every day. When you’re dealing with the threats manually, it’s so difficult to sort through the noise of notifications that can be safely ignored or easily dealt with, to find the threats that are actually a danger.
When you’re doing this work manually, it leads to alert fatigue as it becomes harder to pay attention to the real threats. When they all look the same, and you’re dealing with thousands of them, how are you supposed to deal with it?
That’s where automation comes in. If an AI is handling all the alerts, then it will examine all of them in turn without your intervention. This offers several benefits. Firstly, it will actually check every notification with care to see if it’s important or genuine. As humans, it’s so easy to skim over a notification or even click ‘ok’ without reading it. The AI won’t do that, so it won’t miss an important alert by accident.
The other key benefit is that your AI will then handle all the rote and routine notifications for you, without you having to get involved. If there is something that’s urgent and more of a threat, then it will alert you to it. That helps reduce alert fatigue, as you won’t be dealing with so many alerts. When you do get one, you’ll know that it’s urgent.
It’s amazing how much of a difference this makes. When staff isn’t dealing with alert fatigue, they’ll be much more able to jump on threats and handle them as soon as they pop up.
Make Software Installation More Secure
Finally, one of the best things about automating your online security is that it helps keep software installation secure too. Depending on your business and what you do, there will be times when new software needs to be installed onto devices in your office. There’s also the fact that many offices use BYOD policies, or have remote workers. They will often need to use specialist software on devices away from the office, and that can lead to security issues.
If a staff member is downloading and installing software away from the office, then there’s always the risk that they could unknowingly download malicious files or software too. That leaves your business vulnerable, as it leaves your sensitive data exposed. You of course don’t want that to happen, so you need to have security measures in place.
If you were to handle these issues manually, then you would have to have IT staff handle all downloads. That’s a huge commitment for them time-wise, especially with all the other tasks they have to handle. There’s also the fact that remote workers may not be able to come in and have their devices handled by them.
Instead, automated security AI will be able to handle software installation, and ensure that there are no threats to your business as it happens. That can be done anywhere, so threats can be stopped either in the office or wherever your remote workers are.
These are just a few ways that automated security can benefit your business. If you’re not already using AI in this way, now’s the time to look into it.
Angela Hines is a writer for Homework Writing Service and Assignment Help, where she covers AI and tech in business. She’s also a writer for the Gum Essays blog.