HomeWinBuzzer NewsMicrosoft Opens AI Competition to Fight Malware

Microsoft Opens AI Competition to Fight Malware

Microsoft wants to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to power anti-malware solutions on Windows 10. To help, the company is asking AI developers.

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is constantly trying to evolve its ability to protect users against malware on . Of course, that's easier said than done as cyberattacks are increasing in frequency and potency. On Windows 10, Microsoft's is the company's front-line protector. Now Redmond wants artificial intelligence (AI) to drive anti-malware efforts.

Microsoft has debuted a competition on data science website Kaggle. The company is “challenging the data science community to develop techniques to predict if a machine will soon be hit with malware.”

In a blog post, Microsoft describes the competition as a necessity to combat the evolving malware industry:

“The malware industry continues to be a well-organized, well-funded market dedicated to evading traditional security measures. Once a computer is infected by malware, criminals can hurt consumers and enterprises in many ways.”

Details

Users who decide to take part in the competition will receive 9.4GB of anonymous data taken from 16.8 million machines. This is a training set of enormous information that data scientists can use to create an AI model that produces the most accuracy.

Microsoft says it will hand out $25,000 in a prize fund, tiered in the following way:

  • 1st Place – $12,000
  • 2nd Place – $7,000
  • 3rd Place – $3,000
  • 4th Place – $2,000
  • 5th Place – $1,000

So far, the best entry is an AI model that was 68.9%. This entry is not sufficient to win the competition, and we expect that accuracy to become much better before the competition closes. That will happen on March 13, 2019 according to Microsoft.

SourceKaggle
Luke Jones
Luke Jones
Luke has been writing about all things tech for more than five years. He is following Microsoft closely to bring you the latest news about Windows, Office, Azure, Skype, HoloLens and all the rest of their products.

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