Q&A: Alibaba Cloud’s Ouyang Xin on AI's role for Cloud Security

AI is a double-edged sword for cloud security
The integration of AI with security is becoming increasingly vital for data protection

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Generated by Qwen

The rapid growth of the AI large language model (LLM) market has undoubtedly brought new opportunities and challenges. Safety is the most concerning issue in developing LLMs, including elements like ethics, content safety, and the use of AI by bad actors to transform and optimize attacks.

We spoke with Ouyang Xin, the General Manager of Security Products at Alibaba Cloud, to discuss the role of AI in cloud security and the latest trends in this area during the generative AI era.

Watch Ouyang Xin's Interview on Cloud Security here.

Q: Everyone talks about AI these days. What role does it play in security?

A: The rapid growth of the AI large language model market has unlocked exciting opportunities but also introduced new challenges.

One major concern is the rise of abuse of AI technologies, such as deepfake, which can be used to create highly convincing forgeries.

On the flip side, AI also offers powerful tools to enhance security. It can significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of security operations, providing users with advanced methods to detect and prevent such threats.

This creates a dynamic battlefield where cutting-edge AI is used to combat the very threats AI enables—a true case of “fighting magic with magic.”

Q: How could AI be applied to enhance security?

A: Recently, there has been a significant rise in the use of AI assistants to enhance security features.

A great example is Alibaba Cloud Security Center launched an AI assistant powered by Qwen, to improve security consultation, alert evaluation, incident investigation and response. The AI assistant can cover 99% of alert events and serves 88% of users in China.

Large language models enhance malware detection through advanced code analysis, enabling effective defense against malicious files. Their inferencing capabilities also quickly identify anomalies, reduce false positives, and improve threat detection accuracy, boosting security engineers’ efficiency.

Q: What are the typical cloud security failures businesses are facing today?

A: Nowadays, organizations are increasingly adopting multi-cloud and hybrid cloud setups, adding complexity to IT infrastructure.

However, this trend raises security management costs, as IT teams must oversee products across diverse environments, including public and private clouds and on-premises data centers.

Additionally, fragmented internal structures—like IT managing office security while business units handle production networks—create vulnerabilities at overlap points, exposing critical gaps.

Q: How can we fix these issues?

A: We use a three-dimensional integration strategy for our security products, addressing three key areas: integrated security for cloud infrastructure, cohesive security technology domains, and seamless office and production environments.

For integrated security for cloud infrastructure, unified security management covers public and private clouds, simplifying operations with tools like Alibaba Cloud Security Center, Web Application and API Protection, and DDoS protection—all managed through a single console.

In security technology domains, logs are unified into a centralized security data lake, enabling advanced threat analysis and streamlined alert consolidation to enhance response capabilities.

Finally, the integrated office and production environments improve security operations while reducing cross-departmental risks. Alibaba Cloud was one of the first to trial the integrated system, which increased the efficiency of its security operations by threefold.

Q: What are the latest trends in cloud security?

A: We believe integrating AI with security is essential for protecting data wherever it’s stored. That’s why we’re advancing AI’s role in security, focusing on zero-day vulnerability detection and efficient automation with AI Agents.

As AI security and compliance gain importance, cloud service providers can now offer comprehensive support, from infrastructure to AI platforms. Our priority is helping users build security system to protect their data with efficient security products.

Learn more about how enhanced edge security protects users closer to where the data starts.

This article was originally published on Alizila writtern by Shao Xiaoyi.

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Q&A: Alibaba Cloud’s Ouyang Xin on AI's role for Cloud Security

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