So, you have chosen the ideal consumption-based storage model for your business, TICK; the next step on the data protection to do list is to look at how you can simplify your security processes in protecting your storage, and at Meridian, we see leveraging automation in the protection of your data worth exploring.
It’s predicted that artificial intelligence in the cybersecurity market is projected to grow from USD 8.8 billion in 2019 to USD 38.2 Billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 23.3% from 2019 to 2026. (Globe Newswire)
So what are the advantages of leveraging AI functionality as part of your data protection strategy?
If harnessed correctly, AI systems can assist in preventing threats to your business by generating automated threat alerts, identifying new types of malware and protecting sensitive data for organisations covering a much greater area in the threat landscape than your in house team could keep across.
Let’s unpack some of what we see as the front running benefits of leveraging AI within the cyber protection of your organisation’s precious data.
Planning based on AI informed decisions
AI within a storage solution can provide significant advantages in your security planning and decision-making, allowing you to explore ‘what if?’ type scenarios to inform your future security strategies.
With hackers moving the goalposts and developing new tricks every day, it makes it difficult to know which security tasks need to be prioritised; AI helps triage alerts effectively by focusing on the most critical ones first – greatly reducing the chances of missing critical incidents, and prioritising threats based on attack signatures, indicators of compromise and of behaviour which is highly beneficial when conducting your preventative planning strategy.
Cloud-based systems can also leverage AI to self-optimise the day-to-day management of your data so that any problems can be preempted and identified before they occur using predictive analytics.
Importance of Speed
As cyberattacks grow in volume and complexity, artificial intelligence is helping under-resourced IT teams stay ahead of threats as AI processes rapid insights to cut through the noise of daily alerts much faster than IT teams, drastically reducing threat response times.
At Meridian, we are seeing first had with many of our clients that AI is changing the game for their cybersecurity processes, especially regarding the speed of response.
We all know that speed can be the make-or-break factor in detecting network breaches and, consequently, in containing cyber threats and mitigating high business costs if a breach has occurred. By leveraging the power of AI, it can more quickly and correctly analyse large amounts of risk data to speed response times meaning that you have an almost real-time picture of your vulnerability.
Other key features we see AI bringing to the table when on the topic of speed and accuracy are:
- AI continuously learns: AI improves its knowledge to “understand” cybersecurity threats and cyber risk by consuming billions of data artifacts.
- AI reasoning finds threats faster: AI analyses relationships between threats like malicious files, suspicious IP addresses or insiders in seconds or minutes.
- AI eliminates time-consuming tasks: AI provides curated risk analysis, reducing the time security analysts take to make critical decisions and remediate threats.
AI will never remove the importance of heavily skilled IT teams; however, why would you not leverage this technology to make your protection and response strategies smoother and faster? Think of AI as another weapon in your arsenal to support you in the protection of your business’s valuable data. By leveraging AI-enabled solutions like the IBM FlashSystem Cyber Vault, designed to provide rapid, dependable recovery of your mission-critical applications in minutes to hours. As we have seen, the combination of IBM Safeguarded Copy snapshots, Cyber Vault validation, and automation deliver the ability to restore the environment following an attack rapidly. Paring that with the expert service support from Meridian, you only strengthen your protection defence.
Optimise Through Automation
Prevention is always better than the cure, and with AI, this means identifying a threat before it becomes critical, accelerating recovery time for optimal operational availability.
We endorse solutions like the IBM Security QRadar as a secure information and event management solution that monitors, inspects, detects and analyses potential threats to data stored on the IBM FlashSystem and IBM Spectrum Virtualize—providing powerful cyber resilience, thanks to threat detection features, including AI, centralised visibility, flexible deployment, machine learning and proactive threat hunting. It also integrates with IBM Safeguarded Copy to take a protected data snapshot at the first sign of a possible attack.
IBM Safeguarded Copy then works with IBM FlashSystem Cyber Vault to store and protect data, reducing vulnerability and giving you greater peace of mind.
The Currency of Time
AI-powered security monitoring of your consumption-based storage effectively removes maintenance tasks from your IT team’s day-to-day operations. It means their time is freed up, so they can focus on higher priority tasks and business-critical decisions.
At Meridian, we see more and more businesses using artificial intelligence to improve the productivity of their employees. Leveraging AI functionality within solutions like the IBM Cyber Vault is ideal for managing repetitive tasks that don’t require human input – while your team is focused on big-picture activities rather than spending time on systematic data checks and security processes—helping to obtain early detection of cyber threats and providing improved monitoring and detection through the AI-embedded functionality, proactively checking and tracking your data, alerting your IT teams when risk is present, and giving immutable snapshots.
Ready to find out more?
Meridian can remove the headache of the day-to-day management and servicing of your data storage protection by providing support services, including the management of firmware upgrades, maintenance, performance monitoring and optimisation.
Simply book a 30-minute storage and security assessment call here and chat with one of our team at a time convenient to you.
Book your assessment now.