Research Paper
August 2012 • SECURITY • SecurityMagazine.com10
B ig Data Is…. Big! It also poses big risks and big opportunities. As you know, there has been a lot written lately about cloud computing, and due to the platform ’s design, cloud computing security. Securing the cloud is the wor k
of technical exper ts at places like Google, Amazon, NSA and the DOD. And that cloud is being secured more each minute through both better pr ocurement policy and technology.
The Cloud is BIG! The cloud makes both financial and business sense. F or example, having one identity management system that pr ovides both physi- cal and logical access privileges reduces risk and improves security. There are inherent risks when mul- tiple systems, people and databases are required for identity system
administration. For example, in 2008, an ex-I ntel engineer, Biswamohan Pani, stole documents wor th $200 million – $400 million from Intel after resigning and accepting a job at competi- tor AMD. How did he do so? While the corporate security silo r emoved his physical access credentials, he was able to trick the logical security system. He used vacation time to push his last day out a month on the company Intranet, thereby extending his logical or network access privileges. Identity on a single cloud-based plat- form eliminates silos and reduces risk. Thus, the secure cloud allows us to move physical security applications, including identity, access contr ol and mostly, video to the cloud. It is what I coined, “Security Cloud Computing” to differentiate from the above Cloud Computing Security. Security Cloud Computing enables organizations to consolidate myriad data centers and data bases so that once a r ecord is updated, such as a terminated employee, it is updated everywhere.
Big Clouds = Big Data!! From IBM: Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90 percent of the data in the world today has been cre- ated in the last two y ears alone. This data comes fr om everywhere: sensors used to gather climate infor mation, posts to social media sites, digital pictures and videos, pur chase transaction records, and cell phone GPS signals, to name a few. This is one r eason so much data or information is being
stored in the virtual cloud. The other is cost, since you only pay for what you use. It’s no surprise when y ou add a r oom to the house, you fill it with stuff. The cloud is quickly becoming that infinite attic for ev erything from an individual’s music to y our enterprise’s business information. A cor e part of that informa- tion is identity, surveillance, access contr ol, intrusion and fir e related applications. S o it is impor tant to not only understand the opportunities and challenges the cloud platform offers, but also to think about all that stuff. First, you want to be sur e your stuff (e.g. sur veillance video information) is secur e. If someone kept stealing pr operty from your attic, y ou would either figur e out ho w to lock it or stop putting your stuff there. Second, you want to kill the silos and leverage the platform. Beyond your central station, the cloud (or Internet) enables other stakeholders (mar keting, facilities, law enforcement) access to information so y ou stop, not chase Mr . Pani. Third, as Shawn Clark wrote in our J une 2012 issue, big data mining will unco ver fraud and sav e money. Big Data ana- lytics enables organizations to identify losses and eliminate risks.
Big Data = Big Changes The risk management strategy and toolset is going to change exponentially (and for the better). F or example, more than 8,000 restaurant franchises are notified by the franchiser of cash draw anomalies and losses befor e the franchise identi- fies the loss. Their algorithms identify anomalies against all store metrics and issue an alert. As IBM points out in their definition, B ig Data is made up of v olume, velocity and v ariety. The volume of data (video surveillance storage), for example, is massiv e within your enter-
prise. Time or the v elocity of data analysis is critical to identify risks or events. And ther e is a wide v ariety including structured and unstr uc- tured data such as text, sensor data, audio, video, click str eams, log files and more. Everything you do is to get the right information to the right per- son to make the right decision to prevent an ev ent from occurring or to r espond to an ev ent that has occurred, thereby stopping a disaster from becoming a catastr ophe. Big Data in a secur e cloud is a major boost toward that goal. Take the
opportunity to educate yourself about projects within your orga- nization and identify ho w security can par tner and leverage this tremendous opportunity.
Why Big Data is Important
Trends
By Mark McCourt
Analyzing Big Data – From North Carolina State University: “Software engineer Vijay Pandurangan had a theory. He decided that movie posters have, over the years, become more dark and more blue. Rather than moving on with his life, he decided to analyze the color data from 35,000 posters produced from 1914 to present day. The result, which you see above, shows that his theory was correct.” Read more at http://vizclass.csc.ncsu.edu/search/label/visualizations
WHAT OTHER TRENDS does Publisher Mark McCourt see? Visit SecurityMagazine.com/Columns/Trends
010-Trends - Col.indd 10010-Trends - Col.indd 10 7/16/12 10:37 AM7/16/12 10:37 AM
Copyright of Security: Solutions for Enterprise Security Leaders is the property of BNP Media and its content
may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express
written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.