There’s a catch in all the hurrah about businesses using AI and machine learning to secure data: Cybercriminals have them too, and they may be even better at using them.

“It’s not a technology problem anymore,” said Rohit Ghai (pictured), president of RSA Security LLC. “All of the things like advanced artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, all of those things are great capabilities.” The catch: Hackers have all the same technology, so companies need another way to get the leg up, he added.

Ghai talked with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, during the RSA Conference in San Francisco. He told Frick that, luckily, an arms race is not simply about what weapons competitors have, but also how they wield them.

“The context is super important,” he said. “If you can apply business context to the way you apply that information and those tools, that’s how you win.”

Ghai said that RSA’s Business Driven Security plays to an advantage that hackers can’t get their hands on. He said that applying business context to threats and their handling lets companies set priorities and stay a step ahead of attackers.

Allied forces in cyber war

Collaboration is crucial in defeating attackers, he added. He said RSA has announced it has joined the Cyber Threat Alliance, a consortium of private companies united in the idea that “it’s not the threat intel data; it’s how you use it that’s going to be the differentiating factor.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s on-the-ground coverage of the RSA Conference 2017.

 Photo by SiliconANGLE