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Using Behavioral Analytics to Detect Insider Threats

Rick Janowski — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 23:12:37 +0000

Malicious insiders are finding increasingly complex ways to avoid detection, circumventing traditional information security measures. Monitoring of content is central to detecting insider threats, but still many insiders get away with corporate espionage every year. Is there another way to identify such acts?

Researchers Deanna D. Caputo, Greg Stephens, et al. at the MITRE Corporation believe human behavior is a key to detecting malicious threats. They ran a study in which participants were told to imagine they had fallen on hard times. Two experimental groups were told to collect information in order to receive a promotion with a higher salary. The “malicious” group was told that they had to bring insider information to a new company, while the control group was told to research non-sensitive information.

The study found distinct differences of behavior between the two groups. Malicious insiders demonstrated a consistent “quantity over quality” approach to ...
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Privacy and Big Data

Rick Janowski — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:40:25 +0000

In New York this week? Check out Cataphora CEO Elizabeth Charnock in conversation with GigaOM’s Mathew Ingram at Structure:Data. This conference is exploring the technical and business opportunities spurred by the growth of Big Data.

Elizabeth is specifically discussing the implications of privacy with respect to Big Data. Her dramatically-named session – Big Data, Bigger Brother – will look at the distinction between consumer and employee privacy, and the risk/reward issues for organizations and individuals.

Elizabeth will be on stage on Thursday, March 22, at 9:05 a.m. EST.

If you can’t get to Structure:Data in person, you can watch a live stream of the interview.

Picking an Insider Threat Solution: 5 Important Attributes

Lauren Vilders — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 01:25:50 +0000

Every federal government agency and systems integrator is required to implement an insider threat detection and prevention program by the end of 2013 under the terms of an October 2011 Presidential Executive Order (EO 13587). Titled Structural Reforms to Improve the Security of Classified Networks and the Responsible Sharing and Safeguarding of Classified Information, the order was issued in the wake of allegations against former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who is charged with “leaking hundreds of thousands of classified and sensitive U.S. government documents” to WikiLeaks and aiding the enemy in the process. The Executive Order highlights the severity of the threat of the insider. Manning is one scenario, albeit a serious one, where an “insider goes bad” in the government space. There are, unfortunately, other instances that have made the headlines. Take the allegations against former CIA officer John Kiriakou, for example, which occurred ...
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Hitting Big Data out of the ballpark – Why Cataphora is rooting for Moneyball at the Oscars

Lauren Vilders — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 08:05:15 +0000

For film fanatics, it’s that highly anticipated time of the year again: Oscar time. The nominations are in, and the awards show is quickly approaching, airing this Sunday. The Best Picture nominations list, unsurprisingly, never fails to round up an impressive collection of the ”best of the best” and this year is no different, including films like The Artist, Midnight in Paris, and Hugo, to name a few. At Cataphora, we’re particularly excited that Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, also made the cut. If you didn’t get a chance to see the film, we encourage you to take a look at the movie trailer. The story follows General Manager Billy Beane as he attempts to rebuild the Oakland Athletics baseball team after an upsetting playoff loss to the New York Yankees in 2001. Operating on a shoestring budget, Beane realizes that he cannot rely on traditional ...
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Love in the Digital Age

Lauren Vilders — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 08:00:19 +0000

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we thought it would be fun to reveal the results from our Digital Mirror Love Life survey! For those of you who didn’t participate, don’t worry. You’re still welcome to fill out the survey since we’re not taking it down just yet. In the meantime, we’ll fill you in on its intent. The Love Life survey aims to get a feel for how different types of people communicate in the digital world and more specifically, how our increasing dependence on technology impacts our romantic relationships (for better or worse).

[ Click to view the full infographic ]

Let’s assume you’re taking your special someone out for a romantic dinner tonight, perhaps ...
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The Good and the Great

Elizabeth Charnock — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:11:01 +0000

A couple of weeks or so ago, I was interviewed by NPR reporter Yuki Noguchi about so-called “big data” and how mathematicians are now trendy and highly in demand. One of her questions was how a smaller, less well known company like Cataphora could compete for talent in this market. I explained that one key advantage we have is that we can tell the difference between the really great candidates and the merely good ones, that this was not all that trivial to do in reality, and that it is often important to the really great ones to be understood by their management to be really great ones. Consider that the great artist, whether a painter, a chef, or a geek, always savors his or her work being appreciated by someone who truly understands it. This exchange, plus the recent Monaco Media Forum, have made me ...
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Monaco Media Forum 2011

Elizabeth Charnock — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:38:27 +0000

On the surface, what Cataphora has to do with “Screen Wars,” a conversation about television and its ongoing collision with the Internet and new media, is not so obvious. “Screen Wars” is the theme for this year’s Monaco Media Forum; last year, for example, it centered around mobile devices and the implications of such. While a tongue in cheek response might be that Big Brother is everywhere, in reality, the world of television functions as just one more application of Big Data analytics. At Cataphora, we are particularly interested in this notion of Digital Character™ and more specifically, what insights can be drawn about individuals as an ever greater percentage of their daily doings are electronically recorded. This electronically recorded data is, of course, not just recorded for the sake of posterity in some abstract sense, but also functions as a powerful vehicle for marketers ...
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Top 13 Scariest Social Media Faux Pas

Lauren Vilders — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:00:01 +0000

In honor of Halloween, we thought it would be fun to share thirteen of the scariest social media faux pas with our readers. So, go ahead and pick your poison: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr. In today’s totally wired digital world, the list of social media channels available seems to be constantly growing. Nevertheless, no matter which channel you choose, excessive and reckless online sharing can have real world consequences. Consider these frightening social media mistakes as a lesson about “What Not to Do”:

(1) A would-have-been Cisco employee, Connor Riley, tweeted the following message: “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.” Cisco saved her the angst of having to decide by rescinding the offer.

(2) Marc Jacobs Intern branded company CEO a ‘tyrant’ via company’s Twitter ...
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Breaking Bad: Part V

Lauren Vilders — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:00:35 +0000

For those of you who are just jumping in now, this blog post is part 5 of a 5 part series. So if you’re new and confused as to why a technology company like Cataphora chose to write about a critically-acclaimed television series like Breaking Bad, you can catch up by starting with our introductory Breaking Bad blog post for some context. If you’ve been following along, here is the fifth and final scenario in our Top 5 list:

Maintaining Multiple, Distinct Identities: Is a single individual attempting to maintain multiple personas? In an organizational context, there are a variety of reasons an employee might choose to maintain multiple, distinct identities. Sometime there are good business reasons for this or, at the very least, the activity is harmless, but there may be other examples that could present problems for the organization. For example, an executive-level employee might use ...
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Breaking Bad: Part IV

Lauren Vilders — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:00:39 +0000

For those of you who are just jumping in now, this blog post is part 4 of a 5 part series. So if you’re new and confused as to why a technology company like Cataphora chose to write about a critically-acclaimed television series like Breaking Bad, you can catch up by starting with our introductory Breaking Bad blog post for some context. If you’ve been following along, here is the fourth scenario in our Top 5 list:

Offline and Off the Radar: Is a particular employee strategically taking communications offline—a pattern that differs dramatically from their normal behavior—in an effort to avoid leaving a digital breadcrumb trail? Are their general communication patterns changing: switching from primarily email to telephone calls, for example? When discussing a sensitive or illegal topic, it is fairly common for individuals to take their conversations away from specific types of communication channels, such as ...
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