Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity is a very large and diverse field that has mainly been led by financial institutions such as Bank of America or Capital One and technology companies such as IBM and Cisco. Social media platforms make up a minuscule portion of the sector when compared to these industry leaders. For reference, over the past ten years, the leader is IBM with three-hundred and sixty-six (366) documents. In that same timeframe, Twitter has two (2) documents and Facebook has thirty-four (34) documents. It makes sense that these leaders would outpace social media platforms due to banks holding tremendously valuable information and technology companies' products being so ubiquitous that any vulnerability affects thousands of businesses and millions of consumers, but it is surprising that the margin is so wide.
As evidenced by the attack on Twitter, social media platforms are also a target for attacks that can have a significant impact on the company's reputation and the users if they are breached. AI is certainly not a silver bullet to end all security problems, Capital One is a perfect example as they are second among financial institutions in patent documents but just got breached last year. However, the lack of investment and research in the field is still notable considering the massive amount of data that social media companies hold and the trust that users have for the platform. This trust is what allowed the hackers responsible for the Twitter breach to make at least $110,000 in Bitcoin. Also, it is still unknown at this time if they were able to access personal information. Part of what makes social media more dangerous is that in cases of attacks like credit card fraud there are normally avenues for the customer to not be held responsible for the charges if they notify their bank promptly, while no such safety net exists for the fraud that occurred through Twitter. In reality, it will be extremely difficult to figure out who committed the attack and almost no chance that the money will ever be recovered.
Whether or not AI would have been a solution to this breach, it would be an encouraging and not at all surprising response for social media platforms to become the next frontier that AI cybersecurity is explored. It could also provide opportunities for established companies in the space to partner with these platforms and help them rebuild their reputation. Banks and tech companies will likely always be the leaders in the industry because of the extraordinary responsibility they have to consumers, but social media holds valuable information for users as well and they will need to invest in developing technology to keep their systems secure too.
To see more about the exciting sector of AI Cybersecurity, check out the Magic Number® AI Cybersecurity Patent Forecast®.
