It looks like Watson was built for more than just trouncing Jeopardy champions, and is now putting its brain to work on discovering and analyzing security threats. The evidence: Smarttech, a security services provider based in Ireland, was one of the 40 global companies in the beta program for IBM Watson for Cyber Security, which began during Q4 2016.
Now, the MSSP has signed on as an official customer for the artificial intelligence and cognitive computing software.
IBM Watson & Security Operations Centers
MSSPs see four potential benefits from Watson and associated QRadar Advisor technology, IBM asserts:
1. First, it helps MSSPs break down the security incident by providing more context about the threat, through data mining QRadar's database.
2. It then takes the information it has learned about the threat and creates queries to be used to research more about the incident.
3. Then it will take the queries it has created related to the issue, and dig through databases to find additional insights about the incident and even other threats that are related to the particular threat.
4. Finally, it takes the information it has gathered about the threat and apply artificial intelligence to completely understand the threat, where it comes from, and how much of a risk it poses to customers.
Smarttech & IBM Watson: Early Results
With Watson, Smarttech's analysts have been able to research and locate three times as many threats as they have been able to in the past, the companies say.
Watson uses the IBM QRadar Advisor to help it find hidden threats and automate insights into those threats. Due to the shortage of available security analysts, it is important for the analysts on staff to become much more efficient. This is not a case where a machine will take the place of a man, and be able to do their job better. Watson is working side by side with the analyst staff to make better and more reliable assessments.
Once Watson has completed it's analysis of the threat it can help enforce the decisions of its human counter parts and validate what they are sharing with the customer at risk, IBM says. This can help security analysts deliver more accurate results in a quicker amount of time to help them protect customers more efficiently the company adds.
Smarttech: The Bigger Strategy
Smartech's MSSP and consulting services include penetration testing, compliance, vulnerability scanning, audits, asset testing and more. The company has offices in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Poland.
