What to Know Before Plunging into Cybersecurity Automation

Automation plays a crucial role in cybersecurity in today’s digital world. The frequency of cyberattacks continues to increase worldwide, posing far too many threats for humans to track alone. Automated machine learning algorithms that can perform routine cybersecurity tasks without human supervision are invaluable tools.

However, adopting automated technology does have some downsides. Business professionals should know the main pros and cons before plunging into cybersecurity automation.

Advantages of automation

Cybersecurity automation’s most significant benefit is the ability to take over repetitive monitoring tasks that humans previously had to perform. It does much of the “busy work” of cybersecurity — patches, updates, password changes and many other small jobs. This function leads to fewer incidents of human error and helps businesses save time, money and effort.

Cybersecurity automation is also scalable to fit every organization’s needs. As a business grows, its computer system must evolve. That means the company traditionally has to update its cybersecurity protocols, as well as hire and train more IT employees. Automated technology can easily adapt to organizational growth without imposing additional responsibilities on leaders.

Although automated tools can’t completely replace humans, they have shown excellent reliability with their assigned tasks. Combined with appropriate human supervision and maintenance, it can significantly improve your organization’s cybersecurity efforts.

Disadvantages of automation

Although automated cybersecurity tools are convenient and predictable, they still come with a handful of considerations. Implementing a new technology always involves a degree of risk, regardless of its effectiveness. Ensure you prepare for the following occurrences to get the most out of cybersecurity automation.

Unrealistic expectations

Cybersecurity automation might help you with monotonous tasks, but it’s not the ultimate solution to labor shortages and the higher frequency of cyberattacks (at least, not in its current state). Overestimating machine learning’s capabilities could lead employees to slack off and open up other online vulnerabilities.

There’s also the common temptation to use automation for tasks it was not designed to handle. Businesses that make a significant investment are the most susceptible to this temptation. For example, security orchestration automation and response is one of the most impactful automation capabilities. Although it sounds like an all-in-one solution, it’s only a finite stack of software programs. It cannot do the work of an entire IT department.

The success of automated cybersecurity depends on your organization’s planning. Using automation to its full potential requires proper integration and a realistic understanding of the technology’s functions. Overreliance on automation can lead to disaster.

Data poisoning

Another risk of placing too much trust in automated systems is the potential for data corruption. Threat actors can poison or manipulate automated tools with inaccurate datasets, rendering them useless and making the system vulnerable to attack. Your organization would not know about the data poisoning because the automated technology would still operate normally.

Learn more: Data Poisoning: The Critical Weakness of ML That Hackers Are Exposing

Cybercriminals don’t have to hack or destroy an automated tool to render it ineffective. They just have to overload it with tainted data, which can fool it into shutting down, locking employees out of the network or clashing with other cybersecurity defenses. Creating such a weakness could lead to a severe security breach.

Since automated machine learning primarily occurs on remote technology, the potential losses from a security breach could be devastating. Breaches from remote devices averaged $1.07 million higher than breaches that originated from non-remote ones.

Skilled labor shortage

As cybersecurity automation becomes more widely used and organizations learn how to wield it effectively, there will be less and less incentive to hire new human IT employees. Automated systems can plug the existing skill gap largely on their own, leaving almost no room for people to get valuable on-the-job cybersecurity training. The most highly-skilled employees are currently still needed to monitor automated systems and handle problems beyond the systems’ capabilities — but what happens when these workers age out of the workforce, and automation has prevented younger workers from getting fully trained?

With fewer human employees and minimal incentive to train them, more cybersecurity weaknesses may arise. Automated technology is only as intelligent as those who develop, monitor and maintain it. Outsourcing everything to automation except the highest cybersecurity roles will set the business world up for failure down the road.

Unnecessary automation

Automation isn’t always necessary — in fact, sometimes, it can make your computer systems more vulnerable to an attack. For example, if you automate your software to force the system’s users to change their passwords once a month, this strategy could backfire. Frequent password changes lead to less variation and are more likely to yield simpler results.

In this case, making a two-step verification system with a random password change policy might be more beneficial. When it comes to automation, less is more. You don’t need machine learning software to micromanage all of your organization’s activity — use it only where you need it.

Automation is a big responsibility

If you want to plunge into cybersecurity automation, you must prepare for the responsibility. You can’t adopt new software and expect it to perform without errors overnight. Automated technology is a fantastic tool, but you need to temper your expectations and use it for its assigned purpose.