Cybersecurity is a top concern for executives at large companies, according to an MIT survey.

MIT Survey Says Execs to Adopt ‘Defensive’ AI Programs to Prevent Enterprise Cyber Attacks

Of those surveyed, an overwhelming 96% of company executives said they’re going to lean on AI to protect their organizational computer systems because criminals are using it against big corporations, according to an MIT survey.

The executives plan to deploy self-learning algorithms that understand normal user, device and system patterns and detect unusual activity without relying on historical data or human intervention.

According to a story on VentureBeat.com, problems related to cybercrime are what a majority of executives fear will damage their companies.

Sixty-eight percent of the executives surveyed expressed concern about attacks employing AI for impersonation and phishing, while a smaller majority said they’re worried about more effective ransomware (57%), misinformation and the undermining of data integrity (56%), and the disruption of remote workers by targeting home networks (53%). Of the respondents, 43% underlined the damaging potential of deepfakes, or media that takes a person in an existing image, audio recording, or video and replaces them with someone else’s likeness using AI.

Defensive AI stops cyber invasions before they become a costly and embarrassing event by using “autonomous response,” to interrupt in-progress attacks without affecting business operations. Defensive AI can identify abnormal patterns of behavior and stop ransomware even if it isn’t an already known or identified threat, which is the threshold for most antivirus and cyber attack prevention programs to detect threats. According to the story:

“Reflecting the pace of adoption, the AI in cybersecurity market will reach $38.2 billion in value by 2026, Markets and Markets projects. That’s up from $8.8 billion in 2019, representing a compound annual growth rate of around 23.3%.”

read more at venturebeat.com