Most traditional security tools, including highly advanced ones, still focus mainly on structured and semi-structured machine data, such as system logs and data flow. This information is of critical importance to security analysts, but it cannot paint a complete picture of the threat landscape.

Cognitive computing, as IBM Watson Chief Security Architect Jeb Linton explains here, is intended to augment — not replace — traditional systems. With its unique ability to make sense of natural human language and other types of unstructured data, cognitive tools like Watson for Cyber Security are set to revolutionize the security industry.