cybersecurity

Artificial intelligence endeavors to simulate human intelligence. It has immense potential in cybersecurity. If harnessed correctly, AI systems can be trained to generate alerts for threats, identify new types of malware and protect sensitive data for organizations. The field of cybersecurity is very active at the moment, with new techniques and attack prevention methods appearing almost every day. In the vanguard of cybersecurity, there’s an elite group of innovative companies building AI into products to defeat attackers and win customers. This article lists the top 10 AI-powered cybersecurity platforms using AI to give their products an edge. 

CrowdStrike

CrowdStrikeis a relatively new name in the cybersecurity market. The business started up in 2011 and is officially called CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. Its key security system is called CrowdStrike Falcon and this combines both cloud and on-device elements. The secret weapon of the CrowdStrike Falcon system is an AI-based detection system, known as user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA). CrowdStrike started as a cybersecurity consultancy. Its main business lay in assisting large businesses that had been hit by hackers. 

Darktrace 

Darktrace developed its Enterprise Immune System as a platform for all of its cybersecurity products. EIS uses AI methodologies and populates status rule bases through unsupervised machine learning. The first thing that EIS needs to do when installed on a network is to establish a baseline of normal activity. This is termed the “pattern of life” in Darktrace terminology. Traffic patterns for each network, the activity of each device on the network, and the behavior of each user are modeled to provide this record of standard conduct.

Cynet

Cynet deploys AI in its network threat detection systems that examine threats and act on them automatically. The ethos at Cynet is to make advanced threat protection as straightforward as running any system monitoring package. The Cynet network protection suite is written to provide accessible threat protection to organizations that do not have specialist cybersecurity personnel. That said, the system is not just for understaffed small enterprises. The service’s customer base includes large multinationals with tens of thousands of employees, including organizations with a high cost of security failure, such as banks.

FireEye

FireEye is much older than the two previous companies examined in this list. It was founded in 2004 and specialized in threat research and recovery consultancy services. This is a labor-intensive field of work and didn’t make the company any money.

Through innovation and acquisition, the company has moved into the production of cybersecurity tools that use AI to monitor networks and spot anomalies. This strategy, together with moving from a fee-based structure to a subscription Software-as-a-Service has made the business profitable and turned what was beginning to look like an overrated novelty into a sought-after investment.

Check Point

Check Point is a maturing technology company that has managed to transition from “startup” status through to established multinational. This Israeli company has long been at the forefront of the use of AI in cybersecurity. Starting as a firewall producer, the company consolidated its position in that market in 2003 with the acquisition of Zone Labs, the makers of ZoneAlarm security software. Rather than producing a specific AI-based threat management product, the company invested in the development of three AI-driven platforms that contribute to many of the business’s key offerings. These are Campaign Hunting, Huntress, and Context-Aware Detection (CADET).

Symantec

Symantec is a well-known brand, with which the general public is familiar. The company is famous for its firewall and antivirus products, but in recent years it has harnessed the innovation of AI to expand its excellence into threat detection and prevention. Symantec also owns the Norton brand and uses that to market its consumer products to the general public. Since a demerger of its information management functions into Veritas Technologies in 2016, Symantec has become a highly focused corporate cybersecurity solution provider. 

Sophos

British-based Sophos has its headquarters just outside of Oxford. It also has a US base in Burlington, Massachusetts, and offices around the world. The company began as an antivirus producer in 1985. Sophos expanded its range of products and opened new offices across the globe to feed its expansion, much of which was driven by acquisition. The move by Sophos into AI-based cybersecurity products occurred in February 2017 with its acquisition of Invincea. The two main AI-based Sophos products are Intercept X for endpoint protection and the XG Firewall to protect networks.

Fortinet

Fortinet is a leader in the cybersecurity industry and is slightly bigger, in terms of market capitalization, than the more famous Symantec. The first product that the company produced was FortiGate, a hardware firewall. This is still a key product of Fortinet, although it has been through several redevelopment phases over the years. The firewall is now also available as a cloud service.

Cylance

Cylance started as an independent cybersecurity company, but since November 2018, it has been a division of BlackBerry Limited. Cylance began its existence in 2012 at a base in Irvine, California. It is reputed to be the first cybersecurity protection provider to apply AI to its system. The company became a leader in the field of IPS. 

Vectra

Vectra focuses its activities on one product, which is called the Cognito platform. This is a threat detection system that deploys AI methodologies to establish a baseline of activity throughout an enterprise and identify anomalies. The system doesn’t include automated responses to detected threats, so it can’t be classified as a unified threat manager, or an intrusion prevention system.