Cyber security analyst firm “Big Data Analytics in Cyber
Defense” in their presentation at the RSA Security Conference today (25th
February, 2013) made clear that big data analytics is a great tool for cyber
security and is being adopted by organizations at a very slow rate. By
gathering massive amounts of digital information to analyze and visualize them,
insights can be drawn that can be used to predict and stop cyber attacks.
Teradata Corporation - the analytic data solutions company
and Ponemon Institute made a survey of 706 IT and IT security practitioners in
various fields with an average of 10 years of experience led to the following significant
findings
· Cyber attacks are getting worse but only 20
percent of organizations say they are more effective at stopping them. Greatest
areas of cyber security risk are caused by mobility, lack of visibility and
multiple global interconnected network systems.
·
Less than half of organizations are vigilant in
preventing (42%) anomalous and potentially malicious traffic from entering
networks or detecting such traffic (49%) in their networks.
·
Fifty-six percent are aware of the technologies
that provide big data analytics and 61% say they will solve pressing security
issues but only 35% have them. The outlook is good because 61% say big data
analytics is in their future.
·
Big data analytics + security technologies =
stronger cyber defense posture. Eighty-two percent would like big data
analytics combined with anti-virus/anti-malware and 80 percent say
anti-DoS/DDoS would make their organizations more secure.
As said by Dr.Larry Ponemon, “These new database analytic tools can bring
more power and precision to an enterprise cyber defense strategy, and will help
organizations rise to meet the demands of complex and large-scale analytic and
data environments”. Big data Analytics can bridge the gap between
technology and people in cyber defense through big data tools and techniques which
capture, process and refine network activity data and apply algorithms for
near-real-time review of every network node. Network threats which follow a
pattern can be easily identified. By using big data analytics, faster response
can be made to anomalous activity.
Reference
http://www.wfsb.com/story/21325296/first-ponemon-study-on-big-data-analytics-in-cyber-defense-is-a-national-wake-up-call
http://www.teradata.com/cybersecurity-threat/
In the second lecture, Dr Megahed gave some examples on data mining studies. The following example that I have taken from that lecture is an interesting data mining study for security reasons and a good sample of a big data analysis.
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What's significant about this topic is its relevance to Auburn University. Recently, Lieutenant General (Ret.) Ronald L. Burgess, Jr. was appointed to act as the oversight to Auburn's Cyber Initiative. The initiative has been established to: "Address the growing needs at the state and federal levels for collaboration among government, industry and research institutions to provide capabilities to address critical challenges for: 1) secure facilities and networks 2) Educated, trained and cleared workforce 3) Integration of various agency priorities (law enforcement, Justice, National Guard, DHS) and 4) Cost effective solutions in a constrained economic environment." Currently the initiative is in developing stages. However, this initiative serves as 1 of the 6 Strategic Interdisciplinary Initiatives of Auburn University Research. The others include: Energy and Environment, Gulf of Mexico, Health Sciences, S.T.E.M., and Transportation.
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