The global picture
4 million cybersecurity professionals are needed worldwide to protect and defend the digital world – twice the number currently in the workforce.1
Innovative technologies are transforming business operations, enabling access to new markets, personalized customer experiences, and increased efficiency. However, this digital transformation also challenges Security Operations Centers (SOCs) with managing and protecting a complex digital environment without additional resources or advanced skills.
At the same time, the cybersecurity industry is suffering a severe global skills shortage, leaving many SOCs understaffed and under-skilled. With a 72% increase in data breaches from 2021-20232, SOCs are dealing with overwhelming alert volumes from diverse security tools. Nearly 60% of cybersecurity professionals report burnout3, leading to high turnover rates. Consequently, only a fraction of alerts are thoroughly investigated, increasing the risk of undetected breaches. More than half of organizations that experienced breaches in 2024 admitted to having short-staffed SOCs.4
How AI can help organizations do more with less
Cyber defense needs to evolve at the same pace as cyber-attacks, but the global skills shortage is making that difficult. As threat actors increasingly abuse AI for malicious purposes, using defensive AI to enable innovation and optimization at scale is reshaping how organizations approach cybersecurity.
The value of AI isn’t in replacing humans, but in augmenting their efforts and enabling them to scale their defense capabilities and their value to the organization. With AI, cybersecurity professionals can operate at digital speed, analyzing vast data sets, identifying more vulnerabilities with higher accuracy, responding and triaging faster, reducing risks, and implementing proactive measures—all without additional staff.
Research indicates that organizations leveraging AI and automation extensively in security functions—such as prevention, detection, investigation, or response—reduced their average mean time to identify (MTTI) and mean time to contain (MTTC) data breaches by 33% and 43%, respectively. These organizations also managed to contain breaches nearly 100 days faster on average compared to those not using AI and automation.5
First, you've got to apply the right AI to the right security challenge. We dig into how different AI technologies can bridge specific skills gaps in the CISO’s Guide to Navigating the Cybersecurity Skills Shortage.
Cases in point: AI as a human force multiplier
Let’s take a look at just some of the cybersecurity challenges to which AI can be applied to scale defense efforts and relieve the burden on the SOC. We go further into real-life examples in our white paper.
Automated threat detection and response
AI enables 24/7 autonomous response, eliminating the need for after-hours SOC shifts and providing security leaders with peace of mind. AI can scale response efforts by analyzing vast amounts of data in real time, identifying anomalies, and initiating precise autonomous actions to contain incidents, which buys teams time for investigation and remediation.
Triage and investigation
AI enhances the triage process by automatically categorizing and prioritizing security alerts, allowing cybersecurity professionals to focus on the most critical threats. It creates a comprehensive picture of an attack, helps identify its root cause, and generates detailed reports with key findings and recommended actions.
Automation also significantly reduces overwhelming alert volumes and high false positive rates, enabling analysts to concentrate on high-priority threats and engage in more proactive and strategic initiatives.
Eliminating silos and improving visibility across the enterprise
Security and IT teams are overwhelmed by the technological complexity of operating multiple tools, resulting in manual work and excessive alerts. AI can correlate threats across the entire organization, enhancing visibility and eliminating silos, thereby saving resources and reducing complexity.
With 88% of organizations favoring a platform approach over standalone solutions, many are consolidating their tech stacks in this direction. This consolidation provides native visibility across clouds, devices, communications, locations, applications, people, and third-party security tools and intelligence.
Upskilling your existing talent in AI
As revealed in the State of AI Cybersecurity Survey 2024, only 26% of cybersecurity professionals say they have a full understanding of the different types of AI in use within security products.6
Understanding AI can upskill your existing staff, enhancing their expertise and optimizing business outcomes. Human expertise is crucial for the effective and ethical integration of AI. To enable true AI-human collaboration, cybersecurity professionals need specific training on using, understanding, and managing AI systems. To make this easier, the Darktrace ActiveAI Security Platform is designed to enable collaboration and reduce the learning curve – lowering the barrier to entry for junior or less skilled analysts.
However, to bridge the immediate expertise gap in managing AI tools, organizations can consider expert managed services that take the day-to-day management out of the SOC’s hands, allowing them to focus on training and proactive initiatives.
Conclusion
Experts predict the cybersecurity skills gap will continue to grow, increasing operational and financial risks for organizations. AI for cybersecurity is crucial for CISOs to augment their teams and scale defense capabilities with speed, scalability, and predictive insights, while human expertise remains vital for providing the intuition and problem-solving needed for responsible and efficient AI integration.
If you’re thinking about implementing AI to solve your own cyber skills gap, consider the following:
- Select an AI cybersecurity solution tailored to your specific business needs
- Review and streamline existing workflows and tools – consider a platform-based approach to eliminate inefficiencies
- Make use of managed services to outsource AI expertise
- Upskill and reskill existing talent through training and education
- Foster a knowledge-sharing culture with access to knowledge bases and collaboration tools
Interested in how AI could augment your SOC to increase efficiency and save resources? Read our longer CISO’s Guide to Navigating the Cybersecurity Skills Shortage.
And to better understand cybersecurity practitioners' attitudes towards AI, check out Darktrace’s State of AI Cybersecurity 2024 report.
References
- https://www.isc2.org/research
- https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/it-and-tech/cybersecurity-statistics/
- https://www.informationweek.com/cyber-resilience/the-psychology-of-cybersecurity-burnout
- https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/1KZ3XE9D
- https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/1KZ3XE9D
- https://darktrace.com/resources/state-of-ai-cyber-security-2024