CISCO said on Tuesday its new solution called AI Assistant for Security will “reframe” how organizations view cybersecurity outcomes, “tipping the scale” in favor of defenders.
Introduced recently, AI Assistant for Security integrates AI with cybersecurity. It aims to empower users with the ability to make informed decisions, enhance tool capabilities, and automate complex security tasks.
According to Cisco EVP and General Manager of Security and Collaboration Jeetu Patel, the new solution is a component of the Cisco Security Cloud, an AI-driven, cross-domain security platform.
“To be an AI-first company, you must be a data-first company. With our extensive native telemetry, Cisco is uniquely positioned to deliver cybersecurity solutions that allow businesses to confidently operate at machine scale, augmenting what humans can do alone,” Patel said,
He noted that cybercrime is an ever-evolving problem for organizations. Hence, it requires an ever-adapting suite of cyber defenses too.
Ransomware and extortion attacks have surged, constituting 20 percent of Cisco Talos Incident Response engagements this year. Moreover, the rise of sophisticated attacks by state-sponsored actors necessitates robust machine scale defenses.
Patel explained that Cisco’s AI Assistant is trained on one of the largest security-focused datasets globally, analyzing over 550 billion security events daily across various platforms.
This extensive dataset allows the AI Assistant to understand event triage, impact, root cause analysis, and policy design, bridging the gap between cybersecurity intent and outcomes.
Patel cited two features introduced alongside the AI Assistant: the AI Assistant for Firewall Policy and the AI-powered Encrypted Visibility Engine.
The former allows administrators to utilize natural language to discover policies and receive rule recommendations, simplifying policy management and troubleshooting. Meanwhile, the latter addresses the challenge of inspecting encrypted traffic without decryption, leveraging AI to detect malware and identify the source of traffic without compromising privacy or compliance.
“This advancement will help tip the scales in favor of defenders, empowering customers with AI built pervasively throughout the Cisco Security Cloud,” Patel said.