People today are increasingly reliant on smartphones, smart
speakers and other gadgets. Most can’t imagine going more than a few
hours without using a computer, and some of them spend most of their
work days sitting in front of one. This shift towards a tech-centric
culture means people are at a much higher risk of cyberattacks. But, researchers are hard at work figuring out how to reduce the
likelihood of these attacks – and coming up with some futuristic ways to
do so. Here are just five examples. 1. A high-tech computer chip that proactively prevents attacks For now, a common way to safeguard against attacks is to make
software patches and install them on users’ computers as necessary.
Similarly, virus and malware scanners detect suspicious files and keep
them quarantined in dedicated folders on a hard drive. However, researchers at the University of Michigan think they’ve come
up with a better way. It’s a computer chip that encrypts and reshuffles
its data and coding 20 times per second.
As such, even if a hacker breaks into a computer, the information they
need to exploit a vulnerability vanishes within milliseconds. While using a prototype processor fitted with the chip, the people on
the research team demonstrated how the tiny component successfully
prevented every kind of control-flow hack, which is one of the most
commonly used and dangerous attacks hackers carry out. The rate at which the chip scrambles the data is the “churn,” and
it’s possible to adjust its speed. Choosing a churn rate of every 50
milliseconds slowed the processor’s performance by only about 1%, but
the churn is several thousand times faster than what any electronic
hacking tools accomplish. 2. Compressing network activity to give analysts more of the information they need Speed is a crucial metric when devising new ways to fight
cyberattacks. That’s due, in part, to the significant expense of data
breaches. Image: IBM Research indicates malicious or criminal attacks leading to data
breaches are the most costly, resulting in an expense of $157 per user.
So, the longer an attack goes undetected, the more expensive the
catastrophe becomes. Researchers working for the US Army believe they found a method that
allows detecting harmful network activity sooner than previously used
techniques permitted. For example, distributed network intrusion
detection tasks a small number of specialty analysts to monitor several
networks simultaneously. Sensors on a protected system transmit data to
analysis servers, which is a bandwidth-heavy process. Most systems minimize the bandwidth used by only sending summaries of
network traffic. But that means analysts only see snapshots and often
spend too much time investigating false positives, or do not have enough
details in context to notice genuine attacks. The researchers hypothesized that malicious network activity
manifests early. They developed a tool that stops network transmissions
after a predefined number occurs. The next part of the investigation
involves compressing traffic analysis to less than 10% of its original
volume while sacrificing 1% or less of the cybersecurity alerts. 3. Boosting the cybersecurity of the cloud with blockchain technology A growing number of businesses are deciding it makes sense to
increasingly rely on cloud technology to meet company needs. According
to a 2017 poll, 95% of the 1,000 respondents said
they were using the cloud. Cloud technology caters to enterprise-level
requirements, but it’s not without cybersecurity risks. Large-scale data breaches at companies like Equifax and Uber make
company leaders more aware of the potential consequences associated with
poor cybersecurity. Even so, many business entities remain unprepared. A
2017 study polled thousands of international businesses and classified
their cybersecurity readiness level as novice, intermediate or advanced. In all cases, at least 70% of the companies fell into the novice
category. Due to the popularity of the cloud for businesses and the fact
that many are so unprepared concerning cybersecurity, some people are
exploring specific ways to secure the cloud. The blockchain is one viable possibility for keeping valuable details, such as business intelligence information, safe from cybercriminals. Most people know of blockchain technology associated with
cryptocurrencies. Information gets verified and permanently added to a
digital ledger. As such, it’s difficult to tamper with the content,
especially since the blockchain gives visibility and transparency to all
involved parties. Experts insist that making the cloud more secure with the blockchain
is not immediately feasible. And, the blockchain is not the sole
solution for cloud security, but researchers think it could help propel
progress. 4. A human-machine technology to improve cybersecurity accuracy Many of today’s cybersecurity detection technologies can identify
anomalies. When they detect activity that strays from the norm, the
systems notify human technicians to take a closer look. A research team
from MIT wondered if they might push cybersecurity forward by combining
machine learning artificial intelligence (AI) with human intuition.
Typically, platforms that use machine learning get smarter over time
without input from people. The MIT researchers combined human knowledge and smart computers in a platform called AI2 and tested it on 3.6 billion pieces of data.
The results showed the system predicted cybersecurity events with 85%
accuracy, which was approximately three times better than earlier
benchmarks. Moreover, AI2 reduced false positives by a factor of five. The technology works by poring over the data and grouping it into
clusters through an unsupervised learning process. The goal is for the
technology to figure out which strange events are likely cybersecurity
attacks. However, the system doesn’t stop there. Next, it provides the
clustered data to human analysts. Those people then apply their
knowledge and experience when checking the algorithm’s findings. The humans verify which events are genuine attacks, then give
feedback used to make better models for the next set of data. Moreover,
the existing models can get better from the updated data in a matter of
hours. As such, there is a low to non-existent risk that scientists
would rely on outdated algorithms for too long. 5. The first multi-entity detection and response platform One of the challenging realities of cybersecurity is that risks can
come from multiple sources. For example, a person might unknowingly
download an attachment contaminated with malware. Or, an adversary could
attack the entire network by focusing on a detected flaw. So, one
practical cybersecurity approach entails looking for numerous kinds of
threats and safeguarding against all of them as much as possible. The four examples above all concern technologies in progress; this is
a glimpse into the fruits of such research. A company called Mistnet
recently launched a product called CyberMist.
Advertised as the first multi-entity detection and response platform,
this tool offers real-time prevention of threats and gives visibility
associated with users, networks or hosts. It combines edge computing and AI analytics to find threats in less
than an hour. Continuously updated metrics on the product’s homepage
indicate CyberMist had a 99% reduction in false positives over the last
30 days. Exciting things happening in the cybersecurity realm Even though many people feel unsettled when they think about how a
cyberattack could affect them, the fact that cybersecurity professionals
are exploring such promising ways of reducing or eliminating those
incidents is hopeful. Cybersecurity researchers know how crucial it is to keep threats at
bay, and they aren’t afraid of considering all possible options. As
technologies improve, so should the choices for people who want to bring
more high-tech applications to the cybersecurity sector. Source: https://europeansting.com/2019/06/06/5-futuristic-ways-to-fight-cyber-attacks/
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