Cybersecurity: A Proving Ground for AI

Interest in artificial intelligence from financial firms has continued to grow as the technology matures. However, there are still many in the industry unsure of how it could effectively impact their firms.

Some C-level executives see value in cybersecurity proving its worth in the cybersecurity space. As the amount of spend required to ensure a firm's security increases, the ability to automate processes is viewed as an effective way to save time and cut costs, making artificial intelligence an ideal choice.

"We need to do a tremendous amount of simulation and testing of our environment, as well our people's capabilities to prevent those attacks. ... Automation and AI, that's where the investment is going to take place," said Alla Whitston, enterprise CTO at Bank of America, speaking at Waters USA. "We see the huge benefit already in using AI for fraud detection. Investing in AI for cybersecurity, I think that is probably the next big investment in our footprint."

Bill Murphy, CTO at Blackstone Group, said that cyber is a great place for AI to prove itself since it's about working with test environments that firms can control.

"I think there is a lot of skepticism—maybe not the forward thinkers, but everybody else says, ‘Ah, it's never really going to change my business,' until it does, of course," Murphy said. "So finding small proofs of value, we can quickly say, ‘It's coming. It's best not to bury your head in the sand.'"

"You need to create automation so that the cyber security tools can be used to their best effect. There is not enough talent out there to use them if you don't have that automation," Bill Murphy, Blackstone Group

Importance of Automation

Including AI in firms' cybersecurity programs is part of a greater trend Murphy believes needs to take place in cyber around automation. Murphy said he's more than doubled his spend on cyber over the last four years, which has led him to accumulate a lot of "toys."

His focus is to make it easier to use the tools the firm has compiled over the years, therefore increasing efficiency.

"You need to create automation so that the cyber security tools can be used to their best effect. There is not enough talent out there to use them if you don't have that automation," Murphy said. "That's our big view: How do we take what normally was a skilled operator and make it easier for that person to do the response job that they were doing in 10 minutes and 30 seconds? Because the activity continues to ramp up."

Michael McGovern, CIO at Brown Brothers Harriman, also said his cyber budget has continued to grow, taking up a significant amount of his overall IT spend.

For McGovern, the biggest shift he's seen is network layers becoming more permeable, forcing firms to invest more in securing their applications.

"It's really about having a very pragmatic, objective view of the vulnerabilities of those applications and investing heavily in secure coding techniques," McGovern said. "It's a heavy lift for a lot of firms, but to me that's where we need to focus next."