Rise of the machines: Machine Learning & its cyber security applications
“By far the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.”
Eliezer Yudkowsky
At NCC Group, we are researching Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) from a number of different angles in order to fully understand the pros and cons of ML when applied to security problems. We’re looking to understand where ML works well, where it doesn’t, and more broadly whether ML/AI in cyber security is mere hyperbole or emerging salvation.
An overarching aim of our research is to develop assessment methodologies and strategies for security products and systems that employ attack-based ML and AI, as well an understanding the applications in our defensive services provided by our Security Operations Centre (SOC) and Cyber Defence Operations teams.
This initial whitepaper is by no means intended to be exhaustive; we acknowledge that, as an industry, cyber security is still catching up on ML and AI topics that have been researched for decades within academia.