Preface

The cybersecurity threat landscape is evolving to include an increasing volume and variety of attacks. However, at the same time, the big data era and the proliferation of AI enable new methods and tools to tackle the challenge of detecting increasingly sophisticated malicious activity using large-scale data processing and AI for pattern recognition and enhanced data analytics. AI has already revolutionized multiple areas, some of the most well-known being healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. Currently, AI is making its way into cybersecurity as well through exciting and valuable applications.

In this book, we introduce the place of AI as a methodology in cybersecurity and how AI methods can help solve cybersecurity problems. We give a foundational knowledge of AI for those of you who are beginners in this area, starting with a theoretical underpinning. Following the theoretical chapters, we expand by looking at eight different application areas with six chapters dedicated to these applications. This way, we provide you with practical skills that can be used in concrete scenarios in real-world cybersecurity. After going through these chapters, you can immediately provide value to your organizations or advise your colleagues on how to make a difference with AI in cybersecurity.

Apart from describing the AI methods and going through various application scenarios, we include a part of the book with common pitfalls and challenges in applying AI for cybersecurity. This part helps you to be prepared for real-world applications of AI and the problems that are often overlooked by untrained practitioners, leading to inaccurate project planning and wasted time and effort. We help you recognize those problems and challenges and successfully overcome them to optimize the advantages you get with AI applications.

This book is authored by researchers with years of academic and practical experience applying AI in cybersecurity in various organizations. Publishing this book enables us to share our knowledge and experience in this area to train new experts and help improve cybersecurity overall. The combination of theoretical base and practical skills provided through this book is what has proven to be crucial in successful AI projects!