Page 8 - FCW, April 15, 2016

DATA DRIVEN CYBERSECURITY SPONSORED REPORT DATA ANALYTICS CRITICAL FOR DATA DEFENSE
Data Analytics are Essential to Effective Cybersecurity
As cyberthreats become more pervasive and sophisticated, it’s more important than ever for agencies to be able to quickly detect, contain and remediate those threats. Despite this fact, cyberthreats remain on government networks for an average of 16 days before being detected and suppressed, according to a 2015 report from Meritalk.
cybersecurity. Yet the report also found 86 percent of them believe big data analytics will improve their agency’s cybersecurity efforts.
variety of sources, identify anomalies, and recreate the steps hackers took
to initiate and carry out an attack.
For insider attacks, a data analytics platform can apply behavioral analysis to create risk profiles. Armed with that information, the system can distinguish between malicious behavior and innocuous behavior.
Despite clear evidence that big
data analytics is an important weapon
in fighting both external and insider threats, federal agencies still aren’t using these tools to their greatest potential and reaping the full benefits.
The key here, says Adam Cohn, Government Affairs Director for Splunk, in a recent blog post about the survey results, is for agencies to recognize that all data can be relevant to security. An analytics platform can convert this data into critical operational intelligence for detecting and addressing cyberthreats.
According to the Meritalk report, only about one-third of cyber professionals are prioritizing big data analytics for
A big data analytics platform is an effective way to correlate data from a
Nearly 70 percent of survey respondents said their organizations are overwhelmed by the amount of security data they collect, and 78 percent said that at least some of it goes unanalyzed.
With big data analytics, government cybersecurity professionals say they
can better detect a breach in process, monitor streams of data in real time,
and conduct a conclusive root-cause analysis after a breach, the Meritalk survey found. That’s precisely the reason agencies should consider focusing more effort on applying data analytics to cybersecurity.
Find the Right Data Analytics Solution
There are many types of data analytics platforms currently available. Finding the right one for your agency’s needs takes more
than a cursory evaluation. It requires knowing what you want to analyze now and might want to analyze in the future. Before narrowing down the choices, ask these questions:
n Is your agency’s use of sensor and mobile data growing?
n Integrates well with your structured data, such as databases, personnel records and dates, as well as existing reporting tools, dashboards, consoles and portals
n Does your agency’s mission expose it to a growing array of threats?
nHas a history of continued evolution as data types and user needs change
n Can automatically index data you don’t yet understand. Some tools require you to understand the data set before ingesting the data, but that can be difficult with machine data, which continues to evolve. For example, data formats can change as the result of an upgrade.
n How fast are your data stores growing?
nDo you have IT experts who
can customize a system to fit your specific requirements?
nIs extremely scalable
n Is customizable, if you need that
By completely and honestly answering the questions form the first list, and ensuring any potential data analytics platform you’re considering can fulfill those functions from the second list, you can ensure you’re meeting your agency’s needs.
After narrowing down those choices based on answers to these questions, make sure the platform:
capability
n Can easily manage all the
unstructured and structured data types your agency uses today or is likely to use in the future
GameChanger
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