How should we approach the development of cyber-policy and -infrastructure has given the “short arm” of predictive knowledge?

We should approach the development of cyber-policy and infrastructure by taking predictive analytics into careful consideration. Predictive analytics enables us to peek into the future and obtain the foresight we previously lacked. They can provide a forecast for potential attacks based on observed patterns, unstructured data analysis, and non-local sensors. Predictive analytics can also provide the leading indicators of an attack so that you can get ahead of the impending damage. While predictive analytics promises a lot in cybersecurity, the short arm comes with its caveats. Predictive analytics engines need to be paired with computing resources that are designed to scale with the volume of data targeted. You must have a serious investment in data science, be able to develop scalable, elastic architectures to support the volume of data needed to train sophisticated machine learning algorithms. And finally, you need high quality data in massive volumes. The challenges in cybersecurity are the same, yet amplified, like those encountered when applying analytics in general. This is because predictive analytic processing requires a lot more computing resources (i.e. CPU, memory, disk I/O throughput, etc.). The cyber-attacks signal can often be very weak and obstructed by a lot of organizational noise, i.e. there will only be a very slight change in patterns recognizable (such as data being transferred to an unrecognized server) – which in turn means using the wrong algorithms can easily create a lot of false positives, further complicating analysis. With the sheer number of threats that surround us, predictive analytics would be a great head start, but at the same time must be taken in small doses. Things can get very complicated very fast. My take is to upgrade the previous traditional policies and take your time implementing predictive analytics. Testing out different ways the organization or company can handle predictive analytics at the present time. In the future, it might be as easy as hitting a light switch, but for now baby steps.

Link: https://bdtechtalks.com/2016/07/13/how-predictive-analytics-fights-the-cyberthreats-of-the-future/