Artificial Intelligence, or is it Intelligent Automation, with Sensitive Data

AI/IA isn’t just for the good guys. Many businesses, you could probably say all, have customer data and records that have been accumulated that contain sensitive customer information. Current regulatory and compliance activities validate just how “out of control” managing customer information actually is. 

Reports on the current state of data breaches continue to show the maturity and sophistication of data breaches and how they occur. Reports validate the ever-increasing role of organized crime, foreign government involvement and the realization that most all are financially motivated or to gain strategic advantage.

On the other end of the current state is validation that the majority of data breaches takes months to discover.

All agree that gathering access and/or account information from users is where most of the time and effort is spent by the "bad guys". While the more standard types of user information gathering, such as phishing and malware, are starting to decline (mostly due to better user security tools and increased user awareness) the key remains identifying user behavior and then using the identified patterns of activity to gather information and data.

When considering how AI/IA is being used today, this type of activity (identifying patterns and “learning” user behavior to predict and anticipate user behavior) sounds strikingly familiar.

Both the “good guys” and the “bad guys” are trying to predict and anticipate and thereby take control, at least partially, of user behavior.

In the end, the basis for any “protection” of user data begins with the ability to know, not just understand, what types of sensitive information/data you have and where it is at. Next state is to establish patterns and increase user awareness through automation. The future state of automation is using AI/IA to enable more accurate prediction and influence of human behavior for good or bad.