Big data analytics for security intelligence

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Big Data Working Group today announced the release of Big Data Analytics for Security Intelligence. The new research report details how the landscape of security analytics is changing with the introduction and widespread use of new tools and opportunities for leveraging large quantities of structured and unstructured data.

The initial report also outlines some of the fundamental differences from traditional analytics and highlights possible research directions in Big Data security.

“The goal of Big Data analytics for security is to obtain actionable intelligence in real time,” said Alvaro Cardenas, industry expert and lead author of the report “Although Big Data analytics holds significant promise, there are a number of challenges that must be overcome to realize its true potential. We have only just begun, but are anxious to move forward in helping the industry understand its potential with new research directions in Big Data security.”

In addition to looking at the differences between traditional analytics and Big Data analytics, the report also discusses the impact of Big Data analytics on security, includes examples of Big Data usage in security contexts (network security, advanced persistent threats, enterprise event analytics and netflow monitoring to identify botnets), outlines a platform for experimentation on anti-virus telemetry data, and proposes a series of open questions about the role of Big Data in security analytics.

The CSA Big Data Working Group, chaired by Sreeranga Rajan, Director, Software Systems at Fujitsu
Laboratories of America and co-chaired by Neel Sundaresan, Senior Director and Head of eBay Research Labs at eBay and van Ginkel is focused on taking industry ownership in addressing the world’s immediate urgency for collaborative research and solutions on Big Data topics.

The group is specifically working to address the security and privacy issues magnified today by the velocity, volume, and variety of Big Data, such as large-scale cloud infrastructures, diversity of data sources and formats, streaming nature of data acquisition and high volume inter-cloud migration. The group consists of more than 30 CSA member companies in collaboration to provide industry guidance and best practices for Big Data security.

To access a full copy of the report go here.

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