Watson is a metaphor for a guru who knows everything about a particular topic. Ask Watson a question, and it instantaneously gives you an answer. In tech terms, IBM explains Watson as 'a technology platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data.' The hardware is an IBM supercomputer, and the software is ultra-sophisticated articial intelligence (AI) code.
IBM has already trained up Watson as a top expert in specialized medicine -- including cancer -- then sent it off to help doctors at major hospitals. In the healthcare field, Watson assists oncologists with making informed treatment decisions for their patients. It also helps physicians with clinical trial matching.
Now IBM is grooming Watson as a cybersecurity expert, in a field that desperately needs its help. There were one million cybersecurity job openings entering 2016, with a projected shortfall of 1.5 million cyber workers by 2020. Compounding the labor shortage is a cybercrime wave that Juniper Research estimates will cost businesses more than $2 trillion by 2019.
Cognitive security -- a play on cognitive computing -- may be the best way to describe what IBM is attempting. Cognitive computing is the simulation of human thought processes in a computerized model. IBM summarizes its new Watson for Cyber Security offering as "a cloud-based version of IBM’s cognitive analytics solution trained in the language of security to help analysts gain more precision, speed and accuracy in stopping cyberattacks." Watson will draw upon 20 years of security research in IBM's X-Force library as one part of its vast reservoir of information.
IBM just released a Youtube video which explains how they are training Watson on the language of security, and what that might mean to chief information security officers (CISOs) and IT leaders at enterprises in need of more cybersecurity expertise.
"Our unrelenting focus in security is to continually innovate to help our clients stop cyberthreats, and Watson for Cyber Security represents a major milestone in that regard," said Marc van Zadelhoff, General Manager, IBM Security. "We are ushering in a new cognitive era in security that will help our clients gain greater precision while helping to address the security skills gap."
In the ultimate pop culture battle of man vs. machine, Watson destroyed its competition at Jeopardy. Now Watson takes on hackers in a war which has much more at stake.
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