Author
Robert Randall
Published
11. January 2019
You are no doubt familiar with the saying “for the trees, you can't see the forest”. This is precisely the case when signs of cyber attacks get lost among the barrage of log and machine data. After all, indications of fraud are varied, come from multiple sources and are constantly changing. There is no catch-all solution that can be used to detect fraud easily and reliably. The situation is different for every sector and every company. So how can signs of fraud be reliably detected among the masses of machine data? And in particular, how do you keep your eye on the trees and keep potential risks under control? Read on to find out.
Detecting and combating fraud, theft and misuse presents major challenges in relation to big data usage, particularly for companies operating online. Patterns that suggest internal or external fraudulent activity are often concealed among the huge volumes of unstructured machine data and log files that are constantly being generated by your company applications and systems. Because the fraud models vary, you need a solution to create specific searches that are tailored to your company.
How do you detect cyber attacks in the forest of machine data?
If you work in a sector of interest to hackers, you have already implemented traditional fraud detection technologies and processes for self-protection or due to regulatory requirements. These generally focus on specific, known fraud patterns and require rigid, structured data collection. They are also usually limited to specific areas such as back end (e.g. credit card processing) or front end (e.g. certain webshop applications). And, if something suspicious is actually found, information has to be laboriously correlated from various data silos in order to trace the precise course of events.
New approaches resulting from big data
More data is being generated than ever before and the more digitalisation finds its way into the working environment, the more widespread that data will become. Indications of fraud are found in authentication systems, web proxies, firewalls and databases, in application data and in POS and other payment systems, IDS/IPS and traditional fraud detection software.
When all of the data is indexed and searchable, correlations can be found with a single mouse click. Comparisons against other periods highlight anomalies or trends that would otherwise remain undiscovered.
Upgrade your cyber security
Don’t wait until anomalies actually result in cyber attacks. A solution is required which enables the detection of more than just known fraud patterns through the efficient processing of huge volumes of data structured in different ways from various sources. It must be possible to detect even new, previously unknown attack patterns. For this, our InfoGuard experts recommend Splunk. Splunk is a leading manufacturer for data-based insights within companies, behaviour analytics and enterprise security. With these, existing specialist tools can be redeployed with the added benefit of correlation with other data.
Whether you are comparing real-time data with historical data, reconciling application logs with infrastructure data or searching through web session data, IT security tools (IDS, malware scanner, vulnerability scanner), DNS or proxy logs: the statistical analysis within Splunk enables the detection of anomalies – even without prior knowledge of fraud patterns. If fraud is discovered, the pattern can be analysed and discovered using historical data and thus even if specific or similar methods have been used in the past. This means that suspicious movements can be prevented in real time. Other important use cases can also be fulfilled using the same data, for example regulatory or internal compliance, IT security, IT operations, application and process monitoring or reporting.
Keep potential risks under control with Splunk
You see: companies need extensive security technologies which can be adapted to complex threats and varying company requirements. Simply monitoring common security incidents is no longer sufficient. Your security experts need wider insights from new data sources which are being generated in huge volumes within IT, the company and the cloud.
Staying one step ahead of external attacks, internal attacks and costly fraud activities requires constant security and compliance monitoring, fast response times in the event of incidents and the ability to detect known, unknown and complex threats and respond to them. Thanks to big data in particular, some promising strategies have been developed recently which can be put to use. Rely on intelligent solutions like Splunk – before it’s too late!
Do you want to find out more about the possibilities offered by Splunk and how your company can benefit from them? Contact us! We will show you what it can do.
Be a part of the InfoGuard Innovation Day and see Splunk live
A new year has started and the InfoGuard Innovation Day is knocking on our door again. There, 60 exciting lectures, 25 leading manufacturers and around 300 security and network specialists await you. Splunk, for sure, is part of the Innovation Day as well. Start the new year with good intentions and register today for the Innovation Day on January 23th, 2019!
