IBM Watson for Cyber Security Beta Program Launches with 40 Clients Globally

IBM Watson for Cyber Security Beta Program
Launches with 40 Clients Globally

Cognitive Systems
Cited as New Priority by Nearly 60 Percent of Security Professionals

Today’s increasingly
challenging security environment has created the need for more intelligence to
identify and prioritize threats, which is in turn increasing the workload of
security analysts with more alerts and anomalies to process than ever. Watson
for Cyber Security uses intelligent technologies like machine learning and
natural language processing, which can help security analysts make better,
faster decisions from vast amounts of data. 

A recent study from the IBM Institute for
Business Value shows that nearly 60 percent of security professionals believe
emerging cognitive technologies will be a critical part of changing the tides
in the war on cybercrime.

IBM Watson for Cyber
Security Beta Program Underway

Watson for Cyber Security takes advantage of
IBM’s leading cognitive technology, which is being trained to understand the
unique language of security. By applying intelligent technologies like machine
learning and natural language processing, Watson can help security analysts
make better decisions from structured data, as well as the massive amount of
unstructured data that has been dark to an organization’s defenses until now.

Fortune 500 companies and organizations
spanning industries such as finance, travel, energy, automotive and education
are currently working with Watson for Cyber Security, helping to refine
Watson’s cyber security capabilities and pilot real-world use cases. Avnet,
California Polytechnic State University, SCANA Corporation, Smarttech, Sun Life
Financial, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, University of New Brunswick and
University of Rochester Medical Center are amongst the first set of customers
already working with Watson for Cyber Security as part of the initial beta
program. The beta program will increase to 40 companies in coming weeks.

These beta customers are leveraging Watson in
their current security environments to bring additional context to their cyber
security data, with new use cases such as:

·    
   Determining whether or
not a current security “offense” is associated with a known malware or
cybercrime campaign; if so, Watson can provide background on the malware
employed, vulnerabilities exploited and scope of the threat, among other
insights.

·    
   Better identifying
suspicious behavior; Watson provides additional context to user activity
outside of the primary suspicious behavior, which can provide better guidance
to whether or not an activity is malicious.

Working with these beta customers, IBM is
continuing to enhance Watson’s understanding of the cyber security data and
refine how Watson can seamlessly integrate into day to day security
operations. 

Study Shows Cognitive
Security on the Rise

The IBM Institute for Business Value recently
surveyed over 700 security professionals to gauge perspectives on the
challenges, benefits and opportunities for cognitive security
technologies. 

Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed believe
that cognitive technologies will mature soon enough to significantly slow down
cybercriminals in the near future. While only 7 percent said their
organizations are currently in the process of implementing cognitive security
solutions, 21 percent said they will implement these solutions over the next
2-3 years, representing a 3x increase in adoption. 

Security professionals also said that the top
benefit they expect to see from cognitive technologies is improved detection
and incident response decision-making capabilities, which was indicated by 40
percent of respondents. Currently, the average data breach takes organizations
an average of 201 days to identify and an average of 70 days to contain. IBM / Ponemon Cost of
a Data Breach study, 2016Security professionals expect cognitive to play a big part in
reducing this time by providing them with better data to make fast
decisions. 

To download the full report, visit: ibm.biz/cyberimmunity.

Expanding Cognitive
and Intelligence across IBM Security Portfolio; Investing in World-class Skills

As development of Watson for Cyber Security
continues, IBM continues to build more advanced analytics and cognitive
capabilities into other areas of its security portfolio, as well as its deep
bench of world-class security professionals, including the following:

·    
   Applying behavioral
analytics to better understand the usage patterns of insiders—employees,
contractors and partners—and to determine if their credentials have been
compromised, via IBM QRadar User
Behavior Analytics. 

·    
   Using patented
analytics, machine learning and behavioral biometrics capabilities to help
prevent banking fraud with IBM Trusteer Pinpoint
Detect, which analyzes how
users interact with banking websites, creating gesture models that can become
increasingly more accurate over time. 

·    
   Leveraging machine
learning to help clients find potential vulnerabilities in their applications
faster with IBM Security AppScan

·    
   Visualizing data
access in a single 3D view empowers security teams to detect and flag
suspicious activities before they turn into a breach, using IBM Security Guardium 

·    
   Hiring nearly 2,000
experts into its Security business, including more than 600 in the U.S., in the
past two years, including world-class developers, consultants, and research
professionals.