When it comes to cyber resiliency, artificial intelligence can be both friend and foe.

Index Engines Inc., a cyber resiliency firm that detects ransomware inside customer data, has adapted in response to the increasing number of AI cyber attacks. The danger to organizations’ data is more immediate than ever, according to George Biry (pictured), strategic channels and alliances manager at Index Engines.

“The concerns that we’re hearing from partners and reflecting back what they’re hearing from customers is that as AI becomes more and more prevalent, and more and more used as part of the business processes, the attack surfaces are being more and more exposed,” he said. “And they’re being more and more automated, and there’s a possibility that they couldn’t be as well surveyed as they could in the past.”

Biry spoke with theCUBE’s Christophe Bertrand at the Data Protection & AI Summit, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed Index Engines’ origins and its flagship product, CyberSense. (* Disclosure below.)

Transitioning from data search tool to cyber resiliency leader

Index Engines originally began as a data indexing company — helping customers search their data and pull relevant information — but it eventually leveraged that indexing software to determine whether a ransomware attack occurred. The company’s evolution has coincided with an explosion of cyberattackers in recent years, according to Biry.

“The traditional phishing that we see, which used to be the old email that would come in from a source that you think you trust and you click on a link and next thing you know you’ve given away some valuable details. With AI, that’s become even more and more sophisticated,” Biry explained. “AI is a foe, and these ransomware individuals that are actually causing havoc within these networks, they’re using AI to generate code and to essentially be more effective in attacking organizations.”

Index Engines’ CyberSense research lab claims to have 99.9% accuracy in detecting whether a cyberattack is occurring. The lab developed its cyber resiliency software by taking known ransomware and detonating it in a contained environment, then testing a series of different AI models to eliminate false positives, according to Biry.

“We have a repository of these files that are residing within our CyberSense research lab,” Biry said. “And then in addition, what we do is we subscribe to … industry available ransomware variants. We take these variants, we compile it with other sources of ransomware, and then what we do is we inject it into that environment in a controlled manner and in a safe manner.”

Biry highlights the importance of Index Engines’ roots in data indexing, which now enables the company to examine cyberattacks with high precision and support full recovery of data copies for its customers. AI is, of course, part of their cyber resiliency software now, but Biry emphasizes the importance of careful machine learning deployment.

“It’s a constant training process,” he said. “We’re making our AI and our CyberSense software as strong as possible to detect the malware variance and to be able to understand the evidence of data corruption, not just at the metadata level, but deep inside the files to look at the byte level.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Data Protection & AI Summit:

(* Disclosure: Index Engines Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Index Engines nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE