  Malicious cyber activity is ubiquitous and its harmful effects have dramatic
and often irreversible impacts on society. Given the shortage of cybersecurity
professionals, the ever-evolving adversary, the massive amounts of data which
could contain evidence of an attack, and the speed at which defensive actions
must be taken, innovations which enable autonomy in cybersecurity must continue
to expand, in order to move away from a reactive defense posture and towards a
more proactive one.
  The challenges in this space are quite different from those associated with
applying AI in other domains such as computer vision. The environment suffers
from an incredibly high degree of uncertainty, stemming from the intractability
of ingesting all the available data, as well as the possibility that malicious
actors are manipulating the data. Another unique challenge in this space is the
dynamism of the adversary causes the indicators of compromise to change
frequently and without warning.
  In spite of these challenges, machine learning has been applied to this
domain and has achieved some success in the realm of detection. While this
aspect of the problem is far from solved, a growing part of the commercial
sector is providing ML-enhanced capabilities as a service. Many of these
entities also provide platforms which facilitate the deployment of these
automated solutions. Academic research in this space is growing and continues
to influence current solutions, as well as strengthen foundational knowledge
which will make autonomous agents in this space a possibility.
