Page 30 - Security Today, May 2018

COVER STORY
By Ralph C. Jensen
GSOCS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE GIVE BUSINESSES A PREDICTIVE EDGE IN IDENTIFYING THREATS
here are a lot of amazing things to say and write about Allied Universal. For starters, these security profession- als are headlong into predictive analytics, and WOW, what a difference it makes in providing security services to the customer. They have also deployed their first ro-
bot—more about that in a minute.
Predictive analytics is a tool now used by Allied Universal. If it
sounds pretty cool, that is because it is. It encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from predictive modeling, machine learning, and data mining that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unknown events.
EXTRACTING INFORMATION
Predictive analytics is an area of statistics that deals with extracting information from data and using it to predict trends and behavior patterns. Often the unknown event of interest is in the future, but predictive analytics can be applied to any type of unknown whether it is in the past, present or future. For example, identifying suspects
after a crime has been committed, or credit card fraud as it occurs. The core of predictive analytics relies on capturing relationships between explanatory variables and the predicted variables from past occurrences, and exploiting them to predict the unknown outcome. It is important to note, however, that the accuracy and usability of results will depend greatly on the level of data analysis and the quality of assumptions. It very well may depend upon the expertise of staff
who analyzes such information.
“This gives us the ability to predict—using information collected
from thousands of sources, analyzed to offer meaningful intelligence,” Sherman Brawner, southwest regional director of Allied Universal’s Monitoring and Response Center (MaRC), located in Richardson, Texas, said. “It is this information that provides actionable data that offers threat awareness and helps us protect our customers.”
Predictive analytics takes awareness and information to the next level, allowing decision makers to work in real time and make ap- propriate decisions.
“Predictive analytics lends itself to risk mitigation, and that’s
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