By Juan Pablo Castro, Regional Technical Leader
As threats grow in complexity, the Cybersecurity Compass, a framework for before, during, and after breaches, offers a roadmap for these challenges. Agentic AI, with its capability to autonomously make decisions and act, brings new considerations to each stage. By aligning it with the Compass, organizations can enhance their preparedness, response, and recovery.
Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence that executes tasks without intervention. It can perceive its environment, and act based on its assessments. This AI operates independently, adjusting strategies as needed.
Key characteristics of agentic AI include: Autonomy: operating without oversight. Decision-making: processing data, and determining the best action based on the situation; allowing it to respond to threats. Learning and adaptation: improves by learning from experiences, adapting to new inputs.
Real-time action: Make split-second decisions, critical in cybersecurity.
In cybersecurity, AI is valuable because it automates tasks like threat detection. These systems can operate 24/7, monitoring digital landscapes, and responding to threats quickly. This autonomy is a powerful tool in cybersecurity.
The Compass divides cyber-defense into stages, ensuring that organizations can build a dynamic defense.
Before a Breach: To proactively implement defense, AI automates vulnerability identification without intervention
Autonomous cyber-risk identification: AI can monitor vulnerabilities, across the organization’s landscape, and prioritizing cyber-risk. Predictive analytics: With machine learning and attack data, AI can predict threats, allowing organizations to address weakness before they’re exploited. This approach strengthens the proactive defenses promoted in the before phase of the Compass.
Adaptive defense: AI can adjust configurations based on the evolving landscape, ensuring the defenses remain up-to-date.
This stage benefits from AI’s ability to process datasets and make decisions.
During a Breach: This phase focuses on detection and response. In an incident, AI can minimize damage through real-time action.
Immediate detection: AI can monitor traffic and detect signs of compromise faster than traditional methods. By detecting anomalies, AI can flag incidents in real-time.
Autonomous response: Once a breach is detected, AI can isolate compromised systems, without intervention. This ability contains the breach, minimizing damage.
Threat intelligence integration: AI can integrate feeds, learning from global data to refine capabilities.
In recovery phase, AI supports the immediate containment of a breach, aligning with the Compass’s focus on swift action.
After a Breach: Once the breach is contained, the focus shifts to recovery and resilience. This phase emphasizes learning from the incident and strengthening defenses.
Automated incident analysis: AI systems can perform post-incident analysis, identifying how the breach occurred. This helps identify gaps in defenses.
Automated recovery: It can streamline recovery by restoring systems.
Continuous learning and adaptation: It can learn from incidents and adjust behavior accordingly.
This process enhances resilience.
AI-driven analysis helps recover quickly and prepare effectively for future incidents, reinforcing the after phase of the Compass. The integration of agentic AI into the three phases of the Compass represents a leap in managing cyber-risks. AI’s capacity for detection, decision-making, and learning empowers organizations to proactively defend against threats, respond to incidents, and recover.