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Security Brief Asia: Senior Director at Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work Says Cybersecurity Will Emerge as the Top Business Priority in Asia Pacific by 2020

“As the digital economy expands, cybersecurity threats will multiply,” says Manish Bahl. “Cybersecurity has already gone beyond a human phenomenon. AI and machine learning will turn security issues upside down by building an intelligent defense mechanism to safeguard sensitive information assets. AI and machine learning will become the new face of cybersecurity.” Excerpts:

“In Australia, we’ve seen the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) developing AI-based technology to aid cyber-security, fraud detection and regulatory compliance. CBA is just one example of how businesses are recognizing the importance of investing in AI to protect themselves from any threats.

With the cost of technologies such as computing, storage and off-the-shelf machine algorithms significantly lessening over the last few years, cyber criminals now have access to technologies that can ‘beat’ existing cyber-security measures.

The challenge is to build immunity against them. Fighting back requires an intelligent machine that can detect threats proactively, identify stealthy malware, reconfigure network traffic to avoid attacks, inform automated software to close vulnerabilities before they are exploited, and mitigate large-scale cyberattacks with great precision. An era of machine-vs-machine warfare is where we’re heading and the winners will be the companies that are most prepared for the changing role of technology.

Cybersecurity is still seen as a key IT initiative in many organizations. This approach is fundamentally flawed as cybersecurity is key to building the brand. It is essential that cyber security becomes a top agenda point for boardroom discussions so that concrete decisions can be made.

By 2020, cybersecurity will emerge as number one business priority in the Asia Pacific region. Technological investments, however, will not be sufficient.

Organizations must inject cybersecurity deep into their culture because humans will continue to be the weakest link to cybersecurity. Social media and careless or unaware employees are the top threats increasing companies’ risk exposure.

Cybersecurity is everyone’s responsibility, and the business’s employee performance metrics should reflect that. Also, organizations must invest in building a uniform infrastructure that brings disparate processes together, thus reducing security complexities.

There are definitely steps businesses can take to prepare themselves for any potential cyber threats. These include making security automation a core element of business’s enterprise IT defense mechanisms, taking a leap into the future with quantum computing, conducting regular, formal risk assessments to protect critical digital assets, and making cybersecurity a new competitive differentiator.

As cybersecurity becomes increasingly sophisticated, and increasingly sits outside the realm of human knowledge, harnessing good AI to protect against bad AI will be vital to futureproof against attacks.”

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Also available on:

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