How To Improve Cybersecurity With Data Science

• Matt James
• 30 August, 2019

Here's how you can improve cybersecurity with data science to aim for more secure data.

Are you startled by therise of cyberattacks globally? Well, your business is not immune to these attacks, and you should never be complacent with your existing security measures. There is a need to employ professionals to handle the security aspect of your business. Some of the people that will give high-level ideas on your security systems include data scientists, ethical hackers, and IT professionals.

Over recent years, the development of reliable security systems has greatly relied on technology. As such, you need to exhaustively apply data science, which will help in the analysis of data from different sources to detect threats. The data scientists and the IT professionals will develop algorithms that will help in strengthening the security systems of your organization. This article will explore the impact of data science in the cybersecurity industry.

What Is Data Science?

Data science is a branch of knowledge that deals with the analysis of data. The data scientists look into the data to ascertain its authenticity, originality, and security. If your organization uses data science effectively, it can boost security by predicting various risks. This approach is one of the most effective risk assessment approaches that your organization can apply.

After an extensive analysis of data, the scientists will liaise with other professionals to develop algorithms that are used in blocking various threats. The algorithms are then used to update the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning systems. This way, you invoke a more targeted security approach that guarantees a relatively strengthened security system.

What Is The Relationship Between Data Science And Cybersecurity?

The central theme of cybersecurity is data security. Most of the cyberattacks are geared towards compromising organizations’ stored data to use it for fraudulent activities. As such, regular updates and analysis of existing data are crucial in boosting your cybersecurity environment.

Most organizations have big data that are difficult to handle without the input of data scientists. The analysis of big data in any institution is a proven way of identifying financial risks and averting any cyber-attack plan. It offers a platform for the data scientists to make recommendations that, if adequately implemented, help in detecting the threats. This predictive approach guarantees security for the company’s sensitive data and makes it difficult for cybercriminals to compromise it.

How Data Scientists Help In Enhancing Cybersecurity

Wondering why you should involve data scientists when making security-related decisions? Well, it’s crucial to realize that the security environment has evolved significantly over the years. The rise of technology has complicated the processes of securing your systems. The situation is further compounded by the fact that organizations are increasingly receiving, processing, and storing highly sensitive information from their customers. This has increased the urge by cybercriminals to acquire the data for criminal activities.

To avert these cases, the data scientists detect threats and work towards preventing their occurrence using the following approaches:

• Use of Machine Learning. This is an automated machine network that can learn and understand certain behaviors. The data scientists use this approach to detect irregular trends in data reception, sharing, and storage. This helps them to identify loopholes that criminals can use to compromise the data. Afterward, the professionals recommend various measures that can be instituted to strengthen the security systems. They work together with the IT professionals and ethical hackers to ensure that they seal all the security loopholes in your organization’s network.
• Associate Rule Learning (ARL). This is an approach where the machine learning technology recommends measures to protect your data. The ARL studies various characteristics of the existing data and generates an automatic response whenever it detects a deviation from the normal data characteristics. The system will constantly update itself to ensure that it detects the slightest anomalies in the data.
• Predictive Analysis. Data scientists predict the risks based on previous data patterns. They analyze the existing data, compare it with their database, and identify the possible cybersecurity risk attached to the specific characteristics of your data. This way, they can predict the type of attacks likely to occur in your organization, which helps in developing security measures to curb them before they occur. Some of the methods that the data scientists use include the regression models and the Intrusion Detection System (IDS), which regularly monitor the organization’s networks to detect any risk.

When your organization is dealing with sensitive information, you should be wary of the risk of data breaches. As such, instituting measures to detect and avert threats is necessary. However, you are obliged to ensure that the data scientists that you employ understand the privacy, security, and ethics that guide the handling of private data and information.

Bottom Line

Data security is the primary responsibility of any data-receiving institution. As such, you should always develop measures to guarantee your clients that their data is safe. This is a challenging exercise considering that you are dealing with the highly dynamic cybercriminals. However, you can tap the expertise of data scientists to detect the risks and institute sturdy security systems.