Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have become fundamental to cybersecurity. Artificial Intelligence has the amazing capacity for use to protect as well as to do harm. In the wrong applications, AI has a tremendous capacity to render security systems useless. Grasping the scope of AI’s capabilities and strengths and how it can help protect information is, therefore, essential for any firm concerned with data security.

Modern cyberattacks frequently target companies with large data holdings. Last year, Equifax, a credit reporting agency that collects information on nearly 800 million individuals and 88 million businesses worldwide, fell victim to a massive attack that compromised the personal information of 150 million customers. Just earlier this year, GitHub, a major online software development platform, suffered from a DDoS attack that overloaded their servers with simultaneous online traffic of 1.35 TB per second. Attacks such as these are increasingly frequent and are often used to steal valuable customer data from companies. In response to this growing threat, blockchain technology is now being implemented by some companies.

Following the implementation of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) earlier this year, privacy and security regulations are taking the worldby storm. The California Consumer Privacy Act, petitioned and signed June 2018, will be put into effect on January 1, 2020. Despite its smaller geographical scope, the law will have significant effect on many businesses.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) offers a messaging service which allows financial institutions around the world to send and receive information and instructions about financial transactions securely.

The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation’s (GDPR) came into effect on 25 May 2018. The GDPR law has triggered several immediate changes. The new regulation safeguards security and privacy rights for users. GDPR has forced companies to change their practices on data gathering and processing in many ways.

Application security needs more attention as there is an increasing usage of applicationson smart devices. While security has seen improvements over the years, applications still have vulnerabilities that can expose them to spyware, keyloggers, viruses, worms, and other harmful scripts.

Conducting business online opens several opportunities but also poses risks. Earlier this year, hundreds of companies had data breaches, exposing sensitive information of clients and employees.

The 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) promotes the security and privacy of employee health information. HIPAA seeks to facilitate efficient and effective electronic transfer of healthcare information between healthcare facilities as well as protect patients’ privacy. The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) was mandated to develop with security standards that they issued in 2003. The resulting health security standards rule gives patients rights over their health information and set standards on who can access it. The act further articulates precautions that all healthcare providers must take to protect and secure electronically collected health information. Agencies, organizations, and individuals classified as covered entities must comply with HIPAA.

A data breach may be viewed as the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration or unauthorized disclosure or, access to data . Over the years, thesecurity broadcasts are generally replete with numerous incidences of data breaches across the globe. Therefore, it is little surprise that 1 in 4 business have experiencedthis type of incident . The significant financial impact is also unmistakable as the total average cost is estimated to be 3.62 milliondollars, which equates to in excess of$300,000 dollars .