Step Aside Sherlock, Supercomputer Watson is Investigating Cybercrime

When it comes to solving crime few are as well renowned as Sherlock Holmes. However, now Watson is stepping forward to strike back against cyber criminals--but not Dr. Watson, Holmes’ faithful companion. Instead, we’re referring to Watson, IBM’s renowned supercomputer.

After a year of being “trained” to spot cybercrime, Watson is now keeping an eye out for 40 organizations to further develop its ability to spot security threats. Thanks to Watson’s combined abilities of swiftly processing mounds of data and crunching the information found in stories about recent cyber attacks and analyzing against the industry’s best practices, the supercomputer is able to better identify and track high priority security concerns.

Watson wasn’t made ready to go on the hunt for criminal activity, however. In fact, when it was first taught the term “ransomware,” the computer was convinced that it was a place.

Now, thanks to a lot of data processing, Watson is ready for the next steps, much like a human student would be. The computer will sift through the security events of dozens of companies, analyzing them for patterns and identifying which constitute legitimate threats, and which can be chalked up to user error.

While there will be a learning curve for Watson, the abilities it has at identifying legitimate threats will only improve with time. In the meantime, you can’t afford to wait for Watson’s capabilities to come to your business.

Your business will need other resources at its disposal to ensure its network security. i-medIT can provide those resources, along with other solutions to fit your IT needs. Call 630-549-6199 for more information.