Evaluation of AI-based use cases for enhancing the cyber security defense of small and medium-sized companies (SMEs)

Abstract

Companies are increasingly facing the challenges of a persistent cyber threat landscape. By means of AI, cyber attacks can be efficiently conducted more successful through offensive AI. As for cyber defense, AI can be also utilized against cyber threats (defensive AI). Due to limited resources, especially in small and medium-sized companies (SMEs), there is a need to deploy more effective defensive cyber security solutions. Precisely, the adaptation of AI-based resilient defenses must be driven forward. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify and evaluate AI-related use cases with a high impact potential on the cyber security level, while being applicable to SMEs at the same time. In order to reach the research goal, an extensive literature review of several online catalogs, surveys and online platforms was conducted. In conclusion, seven crucial AI-based security features were outlined that are providing a high impact potential to the security level for SMEs. Afterwards, the results are discussed and set into a broader context. Even though AI-based security solutions are providing a large range of advantages, certain challenges and barriers using AI-related security applications are addressed in the paper as well. A high need for usable state of the art AI based cyber security solution for SMEs was identified.

Investigation of artificial intelligence in SMEs: a systematic review of the state of the art and the main implementation challenges

“…First compared to other technologies, AI is considerably more IT-intensive, and there are more prerequisites that must be fulfilled, such as the existence of high-quality data (Bender et al 2022). Secondly, AI applications are frequently challenging to transfer from other companies or necessitate extensive customization, thereby augmenting the perceived complexity (Kant and Johannsen 2022;Lu et al 2022). The more the companies differ from each other in their structures or sizes, the greater the effort required to adapt (Seseni and Mbohwa 2018).…”

“…In the environment category, only (i) environmental protection is depicted. Conspicuously, the only perceived hindrance concerning the environment is the high energy requirements of the IT hardware for the procedure of AI solutions (Kant and Johannsen 2022). Other potential environmental barriers remain unaddressed.…”

“…In the case studies it is important to critically question the extent to which these solutions and their benefits can be transferred to other use cases. In the field of AI in particular, researchers widely agree that it is often difficult to transfer or copy solutions that have been developed (Ersöz et al 2022;Kant and Johannsen 2022). Rather, the very different initial situations, such as the amount of available data, cause the need for individual requirements and conditions.…”

PALANTIR: An NFV-Based Security-as-a-Service Approach for Automating Threat Mitigation

“…Although the new generation of SIEMs delivers powerful features in terms of storage, visualisation, and performance, as well as the ability to automate the reaction processes, the available countermeasures are limited, static, and deployed without comprehensive consideration of the impact of countermeasures on the infrastructure or even the continuity of the business [ 42 ]. Furthermore, cyber threats targeting SMEs vary significantly from threats in the large-scale industrial sector (for which most SIEM solutions have been designed [ 43 ]). For instance, phishing and malware present critical issues, especially for the SME sector.…”

Cyber Threat Security System Using Artificial Intelligence for Android-Operated Mobile Devices

“…Artificial intelligence is accelerating both economic and social development. It has also become one of the key technologies of digitalization, creating both opportunities and risks [2].…”