Artificial intelligence is reshaping the way businesses approach cybersecurity, helping organizations tackle increasingly sophisticated threats with more precision and speed. As AI in cybersecurity evolves, it’s no longer just about detecting malware, but about predicting and preventing complex attacks across cloud and network environments.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz talks to theCUBE about AI in cybersecurity.
These advancements in AI in cybersecurity, combined with growing collaboration between industry players, are creating more resilient and efficient security frameworks, allowing companies to stay agile in the face of new challenges while simplifying their operational defenses.
“I think it has to start with your DNA and your culture to never be satisfied and to realize that this isn’t just solving a problem today,” said George Kurtz (pictured), founder and chief executive officer of CrowdStrike Inc., in an interview with theCUBE at Fal.Con 2024. “This isn’t like you built something and it’s good for 20 years. You have to continue to innovate in security because there’s someone on the other side trying to out innovate you.”
Kurtz spoke with theCUBE Research’s Dave Vellante and Rebecca Knight at Fal.Con, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed how AI is driving significant advancements in cybersecurity by enhancing threat detection and prevention capabilities, the importance of collaboration with major industry players, and the role of AI and cloud technologies in creating resilient and scalable security frameworks. (* Disclosure below.)
Driving resilience through collaboration and innovation
At the heart of cybersecurity’s future is the need for resilience, according to Kurtz. Reflecting on the company’s recent growth, Kurtz highlighted how partnerships with major players, such as Microsoft Corp., Nvidia Corp. and Amazon Web Services Inc., have become essential in tackling modern threats.
“No one company can solve everything in security,” he explained. “I’ve always said, security parallels the slope of the technology curve.”
CrowdStrike’s collaboration with Microsoft, particularly in the wake of the July 19th incident earlier in the year, showcased the importance of working together in times of crisis. This collaboration was key in helping joint customers through the incident and in ensuring transparency and building trust with customers moving forward.
“It’s an ecosystem and we’re partnering with Microsoft,” Kurtz said. “We’re helping them; they’re helping us. But, ultimately, both companies are helping joint customers, and that’s what’s most important.”
AI in cybersecurity and cloud technology shaping the future of security
AI is playing a transformative role in cybersecurity, andCrowdStrike has been a leader in integrating AI into its platform. CrowdStrike was an early adopter of AI technologies, even before they became widely popular, Kurtz emphasized.
“We were doing AI before it was fashionable — that was machine learning back then,” he said. “Now, we call it gen AI. That has really transformed security in terms of detection and prevention. This generative workflow that allows us to take eight hours of work and compress it into 10 minutes, that’s the power of the platform and that’s the power of helping customers consolidate these disparate technologies to solve real security problems.”
Beyond AI, cloud technology has also been central to CrowdStrike’s strategy. The company’s platform leverages cloud-based infrastructure to collect data once and reuse it across multiple security workflows. This model allows for the seamless integration of new technologies and provides clients with the tools they need to address emerging threats, Kurtz explained.
“We’ve really figured out that the architecture we built, which is best in class in the industry, allows us to very efficiently collect this security telemetry data, IT data, and then we create use cases on top of it that allow workflows to be created to solve security problems,” he said.
Flexibility and customer-centric solutions
A key factor in CrowdStrike’s success has been its focus on delivering flexibility to customers. The introduction of Falcon Flex, a subscription-based service that allows customers to easily access new modules without lengthy procurement processes, was a direct response to customer feedback.
“Gen AI is driving tremendous change in our industry, and it’s also generating tremendous opportunities for the adversaries,” Kurtz said. “We need to be one step ahead of them from being able to protect these AI workloads, which we’re seeing massive proliferation.”
Listening to customers has been a cornerstone of CrowdStrike’s approach, according to Kurtz. By gathering feedback from clients, CrowdStrike has been able to continuously improve its platform and expand its offerings to meet specific needs. For example, the company’s Next-Gen SIEM system was developed after clients expressed a desire to streamline their data management processes.
“We already have this very rich data set. Once we collect the data, it’s already collected,” he said. “We can expose that data and create these modular workflows, or a customer can create their own workflow with something like Foundry. Good things happen when you listen to customers.”
Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of Fal.Con:
(* Disclosure: CrowdStrike Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE.)