World sees 600 mn cyber attacks daily, AI can secure devices: Microsoft's Chik

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: A mind-boggling 600 million cyber attacks are conducted daily, and artificial intelligence (AI) can play a critical role in securing billions of electronic devices by assessing attack patterns and developing autonomous defences over time, a top Microsoft official said.

In an exclusive interview with Mint, Joy Chik, president of identity and network access at Microsoft, said that the implementation of machine learning and other subsets of AI is gradually helping the company take on the immense challenge of securing over 1.5 billion desktops and laptops that use the company’s Windows operating system. “We’re using AI to analyze ‘signals’ that we receive from around the world, and assess these using machine learning (ML) algorithms for real-time risk assessment.

Identifying behavioural patterns for real-time cyber security tracking is made possible only because of AI. Over time, advanced AI algorithms integrated within software platforms will be able to make autonomous decisions in protecting people around the world," Chik said.

For Microsoft, cyber security for consumers is a key challenge to address. Windows, as per estimates by market researcher Statista, is the world’s second-largest overall operating system, and the largest on desktops, laptops and tablets (collectively classified as personal computers, or PCs)—powering 27% of all devices and 71% of PCs around the world as of June this year.

Google's Android is the world's largest operating system, powering 45% of all devices globally. On top of that, many Windows devices do not use the latest versions of the operating system—last year, Microsoft estimated its latest platform, Windows 11, will power 500 million devices