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Cybercrime Being Fought in New Ways |
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Sunday, 23 October 2005 |
"The software looks at past incidents of aggravated assault by location, time and date," said Bill Haffey, SPSS technical director for public sector business. "It adds other factors such as weather, and events -- whether thered been a basketball game, a concert or some other gathering. Then it makes
An arm of the U.S. Armys homeland security Security, strength, a lower TCO: find out about all the advantages of IBM Middleware on Linux. office uses data-mining software Get your FREE Oracle Database Software Kit today! from Chicago-based SPSS (Nasdaq: SPSS) Latest News about SPSS to fight cybercrime.
"We have huge databases with records from electric, water and other utilities that were analyzing for signs of cyberattacks," said Major Jeffrey T. Newhard, director of the Armys Homeland Infrastructure Security Threats Office.
The Army aims to help utility operators upgrade their computer security to thwart hackers bent on shutting down the utilities or degrading their ability to perform, said Newhard.
Military Strategy
"This infrastructure Conquer I.T. complexities. Simplify and save, with IBM Express. is crucial to our ability to deploy troops and supplies around the world," he said.
Heightened computer security represents a new direction for the SPSS predictive analytics Latest News about analytics software, said Jack Noonan, SPSS chief.
"This software has been used to spot credit card fraud and Medicare fraud," Noonan said. "Its very good at detecting unusual activity patterns associated with fraud. Spotting patterns associated with cybercrime is very close to the same thing."
Most computer security systems have basic rules intended to identify hackers and deny them access. For instance, when an individual computer tries to enter through one system port after another like a burglar twisting doorknobs to find an unlocked entry, the system will single out that computer and deny it access under any circumstances.
But a sophisticated hacker Latest News about hacker might program his computer to try entering ports randomly over several hours to avoid calling attention to his activity. The SPSS software will notice these efforts, even though theyre subtler.
Police Patrols
This predictive software has already been applied to preventing crime in the real world, said Bill Haffey, SPSS technical director for public sector business. In Richmond, Va., police use data mining Latest News about data mining to help them predict where to put patrols.
"The software looks at past incidents of aggravated assault by location, time and date," said Haffey. "It adds other factors such as weather, and events -- whether thered been a basketball game, a concert or some other gathering. Then it makes predictions."
"If you have a moonless night two hours after a basketball game, the program points out that in the past, under the same circumstances, there was an assault at a certain location. The police might want to put some patrols in the area. But if its raining, chances are nothing will happen."
Such predictions intended to help police use their forces more efficiently to reduce crime can also help head off cybercrime, said Noonan. |