Next December 3, a new edition of the Dell Technologies Forum will be held, one of the reference events in the ICT calendar each year. And as it could not be otherwise, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity are two of the topics that will be present in many of the more than 40 talks that will take place throughout the day.
Precisely and in anticipation of the meeting, we have had the opportunity to chat with David Peña, Account Executive of the company’s Data Protection & Cyber Resilience Solutions and who has told us about the moment in which AI is in terms of its ability to protect most critical company data. This is what he told us.
(MCPRO) What role is cybersecurity playing in the projects that are being carried out in this last part of the year?
(David Pena) Between 70% and 75% of the projects I’m managing at clients right now are related to cybersecurity. I’m not just saying with data protection, but directly with cybersecurity.
That is, we can now protect the data, copy it and carry out an effective backup policy in case it is necessary to restore it one day. But at the same time, we need to have the guarantee that the data we have copied is reliable and has not been infected. This is where we find most projects at the moment.
(MCPRO) How has this concern for security evolved among your clients in recent years?
(David Pena) There has certainly been significant growth. Traditionally, clients asked what the repository or backup software was going to be, that is, the usual questions that were asked when understanding how the data was going to be protected.
This now changed. Customers have started to ask about the integrity of the data, the time it will take to restore it, business continuity in the event that the company is attacked, how long it will take to continue providing service.
(MCPRO) In this balance when investing budgets, between resilience and data protection and cybersecurity, how are companies moving?
(David Pena) They are two worlds that are moving in parallel and that are in fact converging due to the rise of Artificial Intelligence.
Thanks precisely to AI, companies’ defense capabilities are improving, but we are also seeing more sophisticated attacks, especially in the field of identity theft.
But precisely thanks to AI, at Dell Technologies we are developing tools that help quickly identify these attacks, even in real time, eliminate threats and in the worst case, immediately restore data from a clean copy.
So what customers are asking us for is more and more proactivity in the solutions we sell them, more speed when implementing new AI capabilities related to cybersecurity.
(MCPRO) At what point of maturity do you think AI is when we talk about cybersecurity?
(David Pena) If we were talking about percentages, I would say between 50% and 60%. Right now it is working in a somewhat reactive way.
But I believe that in the future, companies, at the same time that data is ingested, AI will be able to analyze in real time whether that data is good, if it contains malware or any other problem. In most companies, this analysis is done after the fact today.
In other words. In the future we will be able to know from the first moment if we are being attacked.
(MCPRO) How do you help companies detect threats that may arise?
(David Pena) When a customer collects data from the edge or main data center and backs it up, we use artificial intelligence to analyze that data. This analysis compares recent backups with previous copies to detect any anomalous behavior.
For example, if a virtual machine suddenly loses 70% of its capacity, or if a file system that normally changes 5% daily suffers a change of 20% or 30%, AI generates alerts.
Although AI uses known protocols and models to identify malware, it also has the ability to alert us to anomalies that do not align with pre-existing patterns, suggesting that there could be something suspicious, even if it is not recorded in its database.
It is important to note that this technology not only detects anomalies, but also allows us to guarantee the integrity of the data. Once analyzed, we can inform the client that, in the event of an attack, they will be able to confidently restore their data from a specific point in time.
(MCPRO) How important is artificial intelligence for customers? Is it decisive in your purchasing decisions?
(David Pena) Without a doubt, artificial intelligence is a decisive factor. In our solution, it plays a crucial role from the moment data is ingested and backups are made.
AI makes it possible to identify the last valid backup before an attack. For example, if a client is attacked on day 12, our solution can determine that the last full copy is from day 11. This saves the client from the tedious and expensive task of restoring successive copies (day 14, day 13, day 12, etc. .) until you find one without corruption, which could take months or even longer.
This level of accuracy is essential when business is down, and the customer needs to restore production quickly to avoid significant financial losses.
(MCPRO) How will AI and cybersecurity evolve in the coming years?
(David Pena) I think, as I mentioned before, the trend will be towards real-time online detection solutions. This means being able to identify malware and potentially corrupted data at the moment it is being ingested. That ability to detect and react immediately will be key to data protection solutions of the future.
However, this approach poses major challenges. Analyzing data while it is being processed requires computing power and resources that are not currently available on the market. In addition, artificial intelligence solutions will have to be continually updated and prepared to detect sophisticated attacks that we do not yet know about. This involves developing advanced tools that can operate proactively.
Don’t miss Dell Technologies Forum 2024
- That: Dell Technologies Forum
- When: December 3
- Where: Ifema Campus (Madrid)
- More information and registration | Dell Technologies Forum 2024
