In today’s digital era, cybersecurity has become paramount for organizations of all sizes. As cyber threats continue to evolve and grow in sophistication, traditional security measures are often falling short.
Big data analytics, however, offers a powerful new approach to cybersecurity, providing organizations with the insights and capabilities needed to effectively protect their data and systems.
Perhaps no industry needs big data more than cybersecurity. There is a pressing need, therefore, to use big data analytics in cybersecurity.
However, before exploring how big data analytics can be used in cybersecurity, here is a primer on what actually constitutes big data and the technologies that make it possible.
Table of Contents
What is Big Data?
The definition of ‘big’ varies by context but there’s no doubt that we’re dealing with ‘bigger than before types of information.
For example, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) says that Big Data refers to datasets whose size or type is beyond the ability of commonly used software tools to capture, store and process them easily (W3C).
They add: “However, there are many other dimensions along which large datasets differ from smaller ones; for example, the rate of data generation and the diversity of data formats (W3C).
The two broad categories of big data technologies are Hadoop-based technologies and non-Hadoop-based technologies. A sub-segment within Hadoop is Apache Spark which provides real-time insights on hot data.
There are several components that make up these technologies but I will focus on Apache Hadoop since it is an open-source framework for storing and processing large datasets in a distributed computing environment.
The fact that it’s open-source also means that there’s excellent community support for building upon it or tweaking it to suit specific requirements; this further adds to its popularity.
An important concept in big data analytics is Map Reduce which provides parallel processing of maps and reduces functions.
Map functions are applied to each input record (key-value pair) while the reduce function aggregates the results into a single output for that key-value pair; this is then repeated until all data has been processed (Apache).
The Need for Big Data in Cybersecurity
The volume and complexity of cyberattacks are increasing at an alarming rate. In 2022, there were an estimated 33 billion cyberattacks worldwide, representing a 37% increase from the previous year.
These attacks are becoming more costly and disruptive, with global cybercrime costs expected to reach $10 trillion annually by 2025.
Traditional cybersecurity approaches, which rely on signature-based detection and static rules, are struggling to keep pace with the evolving threat landscape.
Malicious actors are constantly devising new attack methods and exploiting vulnerabilities that were previously unknown. As a result, organizations need a more proactive and adaptive approach to cybersecurity.
What is Data Analytics in Cybersecurity?
Big data analytics offers a paradigm shift in cybersecurity by providing organizations with the ability to collect, analyze, and visualize massive amounts of security-related data. This data includes network traffic, user behavior, system logs, and external threat intelligence feeds.
By analyzing this data, organizations can identify patterns and anomalies that may indicate potential threats.
Benefits of Big Data Analytics for Cybersecurity
Big data analytics offers a number of benefits for cybersecurity, including:
- Improved threat detection: Big data analytics can be used to detect anomalies and patterns that may indicate a potential threat, such as unusual network traffic or suspicious user behavior. This can help organizations to identify and stop attacks before they cause damage.
- Faster incident response: When a security breach does occur, big data analytics can be used to quickly identify the scope of the breach and the damage that has been caused.
- This information can then be used to make informed decisions about how to respond to the breach and mitigate the damage.
- Enhanced compliance: Big data analytics can be used to help organizations comply with data privacy regulations, such as GDPR. This can help organizations to avoid fines and other penalties.
Real-World Applications of Big Data in Cybersecurity
Big data analytics is already being used in a number of real-world applications to improve cybersecurity, including:
- Fraud detection: Big data analytics is being used to detect fraudulent activity in financial transactions, such as credit card fraud and insurance fraud.
- Insider threat detection: Big data analytics is being used to detect insider threats, such as employees who are accessing sensitive data without authorization.
- Cyber threat intelligence: Big data analytics is being used to collect, analyze, and share cyber threat intelligence, which can help organizations to stay ahead of the latest threats.
Use Cases of Big Data Analytics in Cybersecurity with Examples
Big data offers greater insight into system behavior and can therefore be used to catch threats. If big data analytics were at the forefront of cyber security, malicious actors could be caught before they do damage; here’s how:
Imitating users
One of the biggest challenges in cyber security is that attackers use common user behavior.
For example, sneaky emails and clicking on suspicious links are some of the most common tactics for tricking people into revealing sensitive information or installing malware.
Big data offers a way around this challenge; if we had access to massive amounts of information such as web links visited, logins, timestamps and device IDs, etc., it might become possible to create profiles of individual users.
This would mean that hackers would have a harder time mimicking different types of user behavior, making it easier to catch them.
Imitating devices: In addition to user behavior, attackers also mimic specific types of device behavior. For example, a smart TV is a very different type of device from say a smartphone or a tablet.
Since each device has unique characteristics such as screen size and processing power, features such as camera resolution may be completely missed by traditional security methods which focus on known malicious signatures for individual types of remotes (e.g. ransomware).
Big data could thus provide insights into commonalities across different devices even if they have never been exposed to the same threat before thereby helping patch up any weak points in security that could otherwise be exploited by hackers.
Increasing productivity
According to the World Economic Forum, big data is expected to increase productivity by around $300 billion per year.
With so much at stake, it’s surprising how few companies today are using big data analytics despite its far-reaching benefits such as reduced operating costs and increased revenue (Scribe Software).
While the security industry tends to lag behind other industries when it comes to adopting new technologies, I expect this field will soon catch up with trends such as cloud computing, blockchain technology and edge devices which are already being used in many sectors today.
Using big data for responsible disclosure of cyber vulnerabilities: Using human power alone, researchers would take decades or more to find out about every single vulnerability that exists within a large piece of software.
This is why information on vulnerabilities must be shared responsibility among relevant parties.
Because big data offers unprecedented insight into system behavior, it could be used for responsible disclosure by researchers to quickly pinpoint areas of the software that are more at risk for cyber attacks due to vulnerabilities.
Reduce Overall Cost of Cybersecurity
At the moment there is no consensus on how much money is being spent globally on cyber security each year; however, reports suggest that the number exceeds hundreds of billions of dollars (NetDiligence).
One main reason why it is so difficult to get an accurate estimate is that products on the market are constantly changing and developers use different tools and techniques to build them. Big data could help overcome this challenge in two ways:
First, collecting basic information such as device IDs and timestamps for all access logs and files would enable any organization to record and analyze all changes made to their systems over the years.
This could help pinpoint malicious activity much faster than traditional methods such as searching through thousands of different apps and environments for signs of compromise.
Second, big data analysis may assist in discovering commonalities across different types of cyberattacks enabling researchers to create signatures that can be used by security products on the market today (e.g. Fortinet FortiGate ).
Provide Real-time Visibility into Network Traffic
At the moment there exist very few ways to know what is going on inside a system;
Unknown threats are detected almost exclusively after an attack has taken place, giving hackers time to cover their tracks thus making it difficult to identify and stop them.
Big data techniques such as machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) could change this by helping security companies detect unknown threats in real time even if they have never been seen before.
For example, AI could be used to scan network traffic for unique patterns that are characteristic of an attack.
Real-time Mapping of Cyber Threats
Companies that provide computer security services face the daunting task of constantly adapting to an ever-changing landscape of threats and it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay a step ahead.
Big data could help by providing a real-time map of all cyber threats in the world. This would allow security analysts to quickly create intelligence reports that accurately reflect what is going on in the cyber landscape today.
Big Data Security Tools for Organizations
There are a number of different big data security analytics tools available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Some of the most popular tools include:
Splunk
Splunk is a popular SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) tool that can be used to collect, store, and analyze security data from a variety of sources.
McAfee Nitro
McAfee Nitro is another popular SIEM tool that offers a variety of features, including user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA).
IBM QRadar
IBM QRadar is a security intelligence platform that can be used to collect, store, and analyze security data from a variety of sources. It also offers a number of features for threat detection and response.
Big data security analytics is a powerful tool that can be used to improve an organization’s security posture. However, it is important to implement big data security analytics carefully and to use it in conjunction with other security measures.
Conclusion
Big data analytics is a transformative force in cybersecurity. By providing organizations with the ability to collect, analyze, and visualize massive amounts of security-related data.
Big data analytics is helping organizations to identify and stop attacks before they cause damage, respond to breaches more quickly, and comply with data privacy regulations.
As big data analytics technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative applications that will further enhance cybersecurity capabilities.
