James Clapper, director of national intelligence, explaining to a congressional committee in February 2011 that he believed U.S. intelligence agencies had done the best they could to track the Arab Spring protests. Here\u2019s what we do know: Some incidents will incite violent protest, political and social upheaval, or set off a barrage of cyber attacks. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed an early warning system that will alert officials to politically motivated cyber attacks or other threatening activities around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a paper (PDF) released late last year, \u201cProactive Defense for Evolving Cyber Threats,\u201d Sandia researchers Richard Colbaugh and Kristin Glass outline a computer model that they claim can monitor the Internet to identify volatile situations weeks before they go south\u2014with \u201cperfect accuracy.\u201d While that information may be enough for a retailer to bet that the \u201csteampunk\u201d look will be the next hipster fashion, it\u2019s what spymasters call \u201cnon-actionable intel.\u201d <\/p>\n
They start by tracking how many times a specific phrase turns up, using a website that tracks memes daily\u2014sort of an early early warning system. … Their approach works, Colbaugh says, because it\u2019s a blend of social science (the power people have to influence others) and computer science (the power of Big Data).<\/p>\n
Intelligence agencies, embarrassed by the unforeseen events that lead to the Arab Spring and historic changes in the region, have been working on open source tools (PDF) that will make them more prescient about world events. <\/p>\n
The research, Colbaugh points out, is in the public domain and it wouldn\u2019t be difficult for a large corporation concerned about cyber attacks, say in financial services, to modify the model for its use. Encouraging as the research appears, it is not designed to replace existing cyber security tools or traditional methods of intelligence gathering. It is best used to zero in on public chatter on the Web\u2014not the modus operandi of your lone cyber criminal or a state-sponsored pro because, as John Pescatore, director of emerging security technologies for SANS Institute, points out: \u201cThey\u2019re not going to yak about it on social media.\u201d<\/p>\n
Link: http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/articles\/2013-03-04\/this-research-paper-explains-how-to-predict-the-next-arab-spring-and-cyber-attacks#r=pol-s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2710,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions\/2710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurityinstitute.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}