Artificial intelligence has been unleashed on the world. While its power is undeniable, its full potential to wreak havoc is still unknown. Cyber-criminals have few concerns about AI running amok, because chaos furthers their goals. While they launch AI-fueled lightning attacks, enterprises must tread carefully, aiming to respond to the multiplying threats without inadvertently creating new vulnerabilities that compound their risk. It has become clear that whether AI functions as a hero or villain depends largely on the effectiveness of the strategies underpinning its use.
AI-armed attackers are relentless
In the cybersecurity realm, the need to keep pace with attackers has led to an untenable situation: convoluted integrations connecting dozens of solutions strung together to counteract the latest threats. Participants in a recent IBM survey used 83 different security solutions from 29 vendors, on average. At best, this approach results in inefficiencies that slow down business processes and increase costs, placing organizations at a competitive disadvantage. At worst, it creates vulnerabilities that AI-savvy attackers can exploit with potentially devastating consequences.
The combination of increasingly sophisticated attacks and rapidly mounting defensive costs is untenable because there’s no end to it. AI has equipped hackers not only with the ability to be more innovative and insidious, but also to persist indefinitely. Enterprise defenses are in danger of collapsing from their own complexity.
There is a way to fight back against the AI-equipped cyber-hordes, however, and it offers enterprises relief from constantly having to respond to the latest offensive maneuvers. The AI beast can be neutralized by the AI hero that replaces fragmentation with platformization: an agile, efficient, powerful mechanism that breeds confidence in business transactions and ultimately drives growth.
Platformized security provides a competitive edge
Strategically applying platformization to cybersecurity gives enterprise defenders an edge against attackers in the capabilities race. Based on the IBM survey results, platformization:
- Ramps up response times. Organizations that were platformized took 72 fewer days to detect a security incident and 84 fewer days to contain one.
- Supercharges return on investment (ROI). Organizations that adopted a platformized approach experienced an average ROI of 101% compared to 28% for those that had not yet embraced platformization, according to the survey.
- Enhances return on security investment (ROSI). Platformized organizations enjoyed an average ROSI of 116% compared to 32% for those that had not yet embraced platformization.
Platformization enables AI to truly be a business driver. It aligns infrastructures with operations and pools data to provide better visibility across the enterprise. It clarifies processes and enhances operational efficiencies. Platformization drives innovation, prioritizes security as a core business requirement, and makes it a true competitive advantage.
Security was critically important before AI’s incursion onto the enterprise landscape. Now it’s vital for forward-thinking organizations to boldly embrace an approach that leverages AI as the driver of modern cybersecurity strategies. Platformization enables enterprises to build a unified defense structure capable of fending off AI-powered attacks today and absorbing AI-fueled innovations into the future.
