In the early days of the Internet, the first cybersecurity companies would detect one or two new viruses each week. Now, 30 years later, the scale of the threat has increased almost beyond comprehension: Ondrej Vlcek, EVP and general manager for consumers at security firm Avast, says that the company currently identifies about 300,000 new viruses every single day.
And as more and more devices connect to the Internet of Things (IoT), that number is set to rise even higher, Vlcek predicts. Hackers are already reprogramming IoT-enabled devices such as baby monitors and home security cameras to run their own apps or attack global services such as Twitter and Amazon.
To respond to threats of this magnitude, Avast is using the power of big data, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to detect suspicious behavior and defend networks automatically. “The IoT space is a ticking time bomb today,” Vlcek says. “I see our role as securing this new frontier of consumer computing”
As published in TIME magazine
