How Artificial Intelligence Could Defeat Viruses and Other Invaders
This is a writing sample from Scripted writer Holly McGurgan
Cybercriminals view firewalls and virus software as a challenge. They're adept at finding increasingly devious ways to exploit IT system vulnerabilities and regularly beat intrusion systems designed to guard against attacks. Incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into virus protection programs offers a better way to prevent hackers from stealing your company's confidential information.
Cyberattacks Can Bring Your Business to a Standstill
Supplier delays or lower-than-expected sales volumes aren't the only threats to your business. Cyberattacks can be devastating, particularly for small businesses that don't use IT support services. Unfortunately, the attacks are becoming increasingly common. Sixty-eight percent of small companies reported a cyberattack in the past year, according to The Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report 2017.
Once cybercriminals strike, companies risk exposure of sensitive customer data and face significant downtime until systems can be restored. Although those problems are bad enough, ransomware attacks are even worse.
Recently, 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries were infected with the WannaCry ransomware. Like other types of ransomware, the program encrypts files, making them useless. The only way to regain control of your system and reverse the encryption is to pay a bitcoin ransom to the cybercriminals.
How Artificial Intelligence Can Help
Thanks to AI, computers can be taught to solve problems, learn, plan, reason and even recognize speech. When AI is incorporated into virus and malware protection, it's tasked with studying malicious code and cybercriminal attack patterns. The knowledge AI gains from evaluating millions of samples of dangerous code gives it the ability to quickly identify dangerous code before it can damage your system. If a ransomware program does start to encrypt files, AI can immediately prevent the damage from spreading to more than a few files and may even be able to restore the infected files.
In some cases, the first step of a cyberattack is the addition of new files to your system. AI systems automatically evaluate recently added files and take appropriate steps if the files are dangerous or suspicious.
Using a virus program that integrates AI can help you avoid the loss of data, prevent down time and avoid financial losses.
Reduce Your Cyberattack Risk
Do you update your virus software regularly? Security companies issue so many upgrades and patches that it may be difficult to keep up if you own a small business. Unfortunately, if you don't apply the patches and upgrades, you're data is vulnerable to attack. Firewalls also need to be patched regularly to ensure that they truly protect your system from intrusions.
Attaching a virus to an email is a simple way for hackers to slip a virus or malware into your system. Reduce your risk by asking staff not to open attachments from unknown people and make sure that that the virus protection software you use automatically scans emails for malicious code.
It's much easier to prevent an attack than to deal with the costly aftermath. Working with an IT consulting company can ease your burden. In fact, virus and malware protection is an important part of the IT support services SOHO Solutions offers. We support your entire network infrastructure for a monthly flat fee and quickly correct problems before they can wreak havoc on your business. We'll be glad to help you decide which plan is right for you. Just use our convenient contact form to get the process started.
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