Cybersecurity Automation: Can a Yes or No Decide the Viability?

The rising cybersecurity issues need to be addressed by adopting automation and intelligent technology.

The role of ongoing rapid digital transformation in the increased cybersecurity issues is huge. How is it possible for a positive change to have negative impacts? Well, we shouldn't forget that everything has two sides, most probably contradicting. The quick adaptation of digitization and disruptive technologies have opened avenues for bad actors to penetrate security systems. The increased dependency on third parties and processes like cloud migration has expanded data vulnerability across the digital spectrum. A report by Ponemon Institute and CyberGRX revealed that 82% of the respondents believed that their organization experienced at least one data breach as a result of digital transformation.

Can Cybersecurity Automation be the Solution?

The advent of disruptive technology has changed the way we deal with cybersecurity solutions. AI and machine learning have improved data analytics and predictive analytics. Automation is another milestone that has impacted many industries. Industrial automation proved to be a catalyst for business growth and efficiency. Cybersecurity automation is an emerging field, which has a promising approach towards attaining better security. Automation in cybersecurity can be achieved by leveraging cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Cybersecurity automation will automate the repetitive and mundane tasks and enable employees to focus on tasks that need high skills. Other than these basic functions, automation of cybersecurity will enable monitoring and detecting threats with maximum efficiency and minimum human intervention.

While speaking to Information Age on cybersecurity automation, David Carroll of XQ Cyber says, "We take all of the raw technical data that you would get from a scan of your network and we interpret it." The engine can then highlight vulnerabilities that could be something to do with the operating systems, the applications or it could relate to the network. And in plain English we tell the user, this is what we found, these are the potential implications. And this is what should be done about it."

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has listed strategies for automated security testing in one of its reports.

There are various cybersecurity automation tools including RPA, SIEM, SOAR, certificate, and key management. SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response) is an automation strategy to enhance security threat detections and increase the efficiency of retaliation to these threats. Security Orchestration is known for preventing phishing attacks by reducing the time of detection and response.

By integrating these automation tools into the security infrastructure, firms can enhance the rate of cyber breach detection and optimize an actionable cybersecurity strategy with fewer disruptions. The dark webs can also be analyzed by these automated security tools to assess the new information, data flow, and identify any familiar data.

A Definite Answer

A mere 'yes' or 'no' cannot define the viability of cybersecurity automation solutions. The increasing pace of digital adoption has led fraudsters to also leverage disruptive technologies and automation for cyber attacks. With these sophisticated cyber attacks eating up security, there is a need for cybersecurity automation and security intelligence.

However, the distrust in technology will not vanish right away. Technology has its weaknesses. Thus identifying and addressing them can improve efficiency. While automating cybersecurity, there should be reduced distractions, clearly defined use cases, and better awareness about the technology to avoid pitfalls of any kind.