In light of the changing threat landscape, cyber security solutions need to use cloud technology and AI, according to Microsoft executive Michal Braverman-Blumenstyk. She calls for the development of security systems that are invisible but provide protection, like an immune system, as attackers find ways of bypassing even huge walls
Rather than simply building walls to protect ourselves in cyberspace, we should develop security systems that leverage artificial intelligence and cloud technology, a senior Microsoft executive said at the Cybertech Global 2020 conference.
"Cyber is a war. We are at war whether the attacks are for commercial reasons, or the attacks are by nation states, and a new art of war is needed," said Michal Braverman-Blumenstyk, CTO & GM of Microsoft's Cloud & AI Security Division.
She noted that last year, in the US director of national intelligence's report on threats to the US, cyber was named as the top threat, overtaking nuclear weapons that dropped to second place.
"Cyber is the number one threat to the US because if it is not handled correctly, then it's a huge threat to any democracy or any nation." It's not just the technology, and it's not only the stealing of secrets or commercial assets. All sectors are potential targets, according to the Microsoft executive.
Even though cyber is known to be a threat, a lot of the solutions in the industry are ones that are trying to build more and more walls, namely protecting in a conventional way. These walls will often stop business or cause false alarms. And even if you have very big walls, attackers can easily infiltrate the system because they are very innovative, and many times they leverage AI, she said during the speech on January 30.
"My vision is that we should develop security systems that are like the body's immune system. Because the body's immune system first of all works in the background. You don't notice it. It's not walls. You don't have to worry all the time about the security system. It's invisible but it protects you. Because when you have a problem it has very low false positive, and when it has a problem, and it attacks, the viruses or the bacteria that attack you, it does it very, very efficiently, and again with very low false positive."
Braverman-Blumenstyk stated that the key to developing such a system is leveraging both AI and cloud technologies.
"I think the cloud is a huge enabler in order to fight cyber threats. Of course the combination of AI and the cloud." In the past people were afraid of the cloud because it was considered not secure, but in recent years it's become clear that the cloud is not only safer can actually be used to protect even the legacy systems wherever they exist, according to the CTO.
As for intelligence, she pointed out that "First of all, in order to even attempt to think about the immune system, the system is actually a huge analytic system that leverages a lot of information in our body and comes up with the right decision. So first we need a lot of intelligence," such as information about user log-ins, the profiles of the users, and similarities to previous attacks.
"All this intelligence, with the assistance of the cloud, now can be analyzed by artificial intelligence systems that will use all this information in order to make sure that we reduce the false positive and we aggregate and receive the full picture and choose just the right level of defense," she said.
Braverman-Blumenstyk previously served as chief operating officer for Cyota, the first startup to employ artificial intelligence and machine learning in cyber. She also founded the cybersecurity center within the Microsoft Israel Development Center.
