AI in Biotech. How it helps, and the cybersecurity implications you should be paying attention to

What an exciting year it’s been watching the evolving landscape of AI and its meteoric rise in everyday life. It seems like every tool and platform boasts something along the lines of “AI-Powered” or you see references to machine learning on their website. It’s absolutely everywhere. As we close out this year, let’s look at some of the ways AI is helping contribute to the Biotech space and then at some common cybersecurity implications around these tools and where you should focus your attention in 2024.

??? AI-Powered R&D: Accelerating Drug Discovery

In the biotech world, time is of the essence during research. AI expedites drug discovery by predicting potential candidates, reducing trial and error, and offering insights that traditional methods might overlook. AI programs can also take over tedious tasks like enzyme compositions, chemical studies, and provide faster analysis of drug or study data. By augmenting human capabilities with platforms like Benevolent AI, DeepMind or Tempus, AI becomes a powerful ally in the quest for groundbreaking therapies and medical innovation.

?? ?Collaboration is Key: Industry-wide Initiatives

In the age of AI, collaboration takes center stage. The synergy between human intuition and AI-driven analytics is where the rubber meets the road. One recent example is Microsoft Co-Pilot, a utility that uses AI to help automate tasks, summarize emails, and schedule meetings. Companies that embrace this collaborative approach are leading the charge toward an AI-driven business world.?

While AI is a powerful tool that can perform critical tasks, it becomes even more important for us to understand the cybersecurity challenges AI presents in addition to the important benefits it provides. Enforcing basic security principles such as multi-factor authentication, auditing permissions, and using role-based-access-controls will help ensure your data and environment are as secure as possible. Then, of course, you ought to have robust Security Operations to stay protected and extract the maximum benefit from all the security products deployed in your environment. But there is more:

?? Data Loss Prevention

As good as the tools we put in are, they are only as secure as the end user. Often, the biggest security threat isn’t from an outside adversary but from inside data leakage. Predominantly, it’s unintentional, but leaking confidential data carries huge ramifications that could impact the business directly. Our team of experts knows how to set real-time coaching pop-ups for end users when they use AI tools, provide the IT team visibility into what AI tools are being used in their environment, and alert them if and when sensitive data leaves the organization's boundary.

?? Real World Applications

Over the past year at Stratogent, we’ve tackled several difficult problems (we will elaborate on those in later articles!), few more rewarding than helping address the AI question at companies embracing digital change.

One request we commonly receive is from companies asking to block AI entirely and only allow exceptions on a granular basis. This keeps control with IT for widespread usage of AI-based apps, but we do see this contribute to a rise in shadow IT. Adopting a more balanced approach, Stratogent helped implement policies to prevent unsanctioned AI usage and leaking data sets to Generative AI platforms while providing visibility into what’s happening organization-wide.

In early 2023, we worked with a company interested in identifying AI usage without an intent to restrict it. We collected insights over many months with real-time user coaching prompts that would inform the user of the potential for data loss. ?Towards the end of the year, coaching was supplemented with data based well-thought-through policy restrictions.? End result – safety without complaints from end users!??

?? Embracing the Future Securely: An Ongoing Commitment

As we look ahead to the next year and beyond, let's appreciate the moment we live in and the key benefits of AI. Let us commit to a future where innovation and security go hand in hand. Here's to another year of pushing boundaries, overcoming challenges, and securing the AI future together!