How to Leverage AI to Make Complex Security Information Easy to Understand

As organizations become increasingly aware of how important implementing cybersecurity policies and measures is, many of them still find themselves entangled in the notoriously complex datasets.

What’s more, cyberthreats are only evolving and becoming more sophisticated, making swift decision-making and preventive measures the need of the hour. This often entails simplifying complex security trends, patterns, and data into simple and informative reports that the executives and management can refer to for insights. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is quickly emerging as a solution to automate and aid this process, so that skilled security professionals can focus on strategic tasks. However, before delving deeper into the benefits and process of simplifying security information seamlessly through AI, let us understand the challenge of not doing so.

Understanding the Challenge of Decoding Complex Security Information

Modern IT infrastructure is complex and encompasses a wide range of systems and processes that interconnect to support business processes. A typical IT infrastructure can consist of legacy systems, cloud services, and new platforms.

Organizations today rely especially heavily on cloud services, leading to blurred security parameters and increased operational complexity. When companies create comprehensive security reports with insights and analytics about their complex IT infrastructure, it is often tailored to be read only by the security team or managers. 

Such reports are filled with technical jargon, involve abstract threat models, and include lengthy compliance documents that are not understandable to most non-specialists. Moreover, human errors due to mistakes or misunderstandings caused by staff can complicate your understanding of security reports and strategies even further.

Key Benefits of Implementing AI in Security Communication

Now that we have explored the biggest challenges of complex security information and why they need to be simplified, here are a few additional merits you can target by doing so:

• Faster Incident Response: You can identify, prevent, and contain any breaches or vulnerabilities much faster if you have AI-driven security tools in place. By responding faster, you can also proactively prevent financial losses.
• Real-Time Analysis: AI can not only analyze vast datasets in real-time but also uncover patterns and threats that human analysts may not immediately spot, thus giving you timely, actionable insights.
• Proactive Defense: AI tools generally rely on and analyze historical data to help organizations move from a more reactive to a proactive security posture, thus strengthening their defenses.
• Accessibility: AI can convert complex data into simple summaries and visuals, making security information more accessible to non-technical executives and IT staff with a limited technical skill set. 

3 Primary Ways in Which AI Can Simplify Security Communication

Say, you manage security for a multinational company and create comprehensive security reports every quarter. These reports are likely to be over 40-50 pages and contain acronyms, technical jargon, and charts that would not make sense to anyone without the relevant skillset. As a result, your managers and executives may struggle to derive key insights and actionable items from these reports.

Enter AI, which revolutionizes the way organizations identify threats, manage security vulnerabilities, minimize IoT security risks, and simplify complex information. Let us look at the three primary ways in which organizations can do this: 

#1 Automated Summarization

If you find yourself dealing with lengthy and complex security reports very often, consider implementing AI-powered summarization tools that can distill all that information into concise and easy-to-read summaries. Such tools leverage machine learning and natural language processing to select the most critical information in your report and filter out unnecessary information.

Having simplified versions of security reports can make them more accessible to non-technical stakeholders and executives. Using tools like IBM QRadar and Darktrace can not only help you get useful insights into your security posture, but they can also summarize findings for quick review.

#2 Natural Language Processing

The NLP capabilities of AI can help translate technical security language into plain English that is clear and understandable. AI-based apps that leverage large language models (LLMs) can create simpler explanations for a broader audience, out of jargon-laden, raw, and technical security data.

NLP can help bridge the gap between business leaders and security teams so that your business can effectively make informed, strategic decisions. For example, security teams can have chatbots that, when asked, “What does this security threat mean for my business?” respond with a clear and easy explanation for non-technical executives.

You can utilize AI-driven reporting with the help of platforms like Balbix or ChatGPT humanizer to create easily comprehensible summaries and business-level reports based on the technical findings of your security reports.

#3 Visual Aids

Visual formats are known to be much more impressionable and engaging than presenting raw facts and figures. With the help of AI, you can transform your raw security data into dashboards, charts, and infographics that help you analyze trends and anomalies.

Leveraging AI-powered visualization tools can help you identify patterns, track compliance status, and monitor incident trends effortlessly. These features make it easier for you to present technical information to all your stakeholders, especially the non-technical ones.

For example, companies can leverage AI-driven dashboards to gain a visual and clear view of attempted phishing attacks, system vulnerabilities, and response times, rather than analyzing large volumes of raw log files.

Step-by-Step Process to Simplify Security Information Using AI

Now that we have looked at the three major use cases of AI to consider when simplifying security information, let us look at the step-by-step process to go about it:

Step #1: Identify Your Audience

Before you even start selecting AI tools for simplifying security information and insights, understanding the target audience and consumer is crucial. Only by truly getting to know who will consume your information can you tailor your technical information to make more sense. 

Remember that the levels of technical expertise and information needs can vary based on who the stakeholders are. For example, while executives only require high-level summaries of your security information, IT teams need more technical breakdowns and actionable suggestions.

Step #2: Choose the Right AI Tool

In what ways do you want to simplify your technical information? What is your preferred output format? What would align with the preferences of the target audience you just identified?

All of these are pertinent questions when you are selecting the right AI tools for your requirements. Once you figure out the type of security information you need, you can utilize AI-powered summarization tools, NLP engines, and visualization platforms.

For example, security teams may have more use for an AI-summarization tool to condense comprehensive security reports, or a tool like Power BI to present complex technical data through interactive dashboards.

Step #3: Input Security Data or Documents

Once you have picked the right AI tool for your requirements, you will need to feed it relevant security data to be simplified. The data you will input into your AI tool can be in the form of logs, incident reports, compliance documents, or even threat intelligence. However, you must ensure that your data is clean, updated, and accurate.

After all, the better the quality of your input, the better your output. For example, if a compliance officer wants to extract critical compliance gaps from a 100-page GDPR audit report, they must upload it directly into an AI-summarization tool.

Step #4: Review and Refine Output

The biggest myth circulating on the web currently is that using AI to generate the desired output totally eliminates human intervention. When dealing with sensitive and crucial information related to your data and IT security, ensure that all summaries, visuals, or explanations generated by AI are reviewed by a human expert.

More importantly, you must thoroughly review AI-generated outputs for technical accuracy, potential misunderstandings, and language issues. You can then refine and tailor the output to the audience’s needs.

For example, if you have created an AI-generated summary for a recent security breach, it is best to get it checked by a security analyst for accuracy and context. Doing so ensures that all your sensitive info is handled properly.

Step #5: Share Results in User-Friendly Formats

Once you have your security information summarized and simplified as per your needs, you only need to select the right format. Opting for a user-friendly format that is easy for your target audience to consume will ensure that they engage with it and are aware of the key takeaways.

Choose whether you would like to represent your complex data in the form of interactive dashboards, infographics, executive summaries, or FAQs. The decision should be based on user preferences, potential reach and engagement, and the actionability of your information.

Concluding Remarks

AI can simplify crucial security information in several ways and help you summarize, simplify, and present complex data in a visually appealing manner. Not only this, AI can help you save tons of time, and make your security insights and data more accessible to the management and executives without technical skillsets. By implementing the right tools, you can make informed decisions more swiftly and foster a culture of security awareness.