Las Vegas relies on AI for cybersecurity assistance
Las Vegas, despite its large population, has a small information security team, consisting of only three employees and one intern. That’s why the city’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) is relying on artificial intelligence to keep the city’s data and technology secure.
Michael Sherwood, Las Vegas’s CIO, told TechCrunch, “The things that keep me up most are ransomware and phishing. They’re some of the simplest attacks but the hardest to defend against.”
To alleviate his concerns, Sherwood is relying on AI security solutions from Darktrace to support his small team.
Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly popular across the tech industry, and cybersecurity is no exception. Enterprise security firms are adding AI features to their products to detect anomalies on customers’ networks, without requiring human intervention.
However, Darktrace, which launched in 2013, claims to have been using AI since its inception. Nicole Eagan, CEO of the company, stated, “We have a three-plus year lead on anyone else. A lot of companies are messaging machine learning. I always ask, ‘What is it doing?’ The way we are using it is quite different.”
While some vendors use machine learning to train their products to identify malware, Eagan says her team uses machine learning to give enterprise networks a “sense of self” so they can detect intrusions. She compares it to the human immune system, which detects infections and responds automatically.
Detection has been part of Darktrace’s product for a while now, but automated response is new – and it’s a crucial feature for small teams like Sherwood’s. “With Darktrace, a lot of the worry is taken out of certain components,” he says. “As it tells us what it would like to do, we can say those are good responses and implement these controls immediately.”
The goal is for Darktrace to eventually take over, making decisions about its responses without approval from a human.
The AI takeover might sound intimidating, but Sherwood is optimistic about the idea. He compared his all-in approach to Uber and Lyft, which fought regulators and the taxi industry to deploy on Vegas streets.
“Do you go in all the way or do you not?,” he asks. “I wouldn’t live without artificial intelligence. Humans make wrong decisions every day.”
