Big Data for Security @ HP Labs: Key Milestone Achieved

In the Big Data for Security R&D project, at HP Labs, we achieved an important milestone. We delivered our first, fully working prototype (and related demonstrator) illustrating how  it is possible to analyse Big Security data to identify potential (new) security threats and issues of relevance to organisations.

We focused, as a case study, on DNS events: DNS logs are usually huge, due to the very large amount of DNS queries (and replies) performed per second. As a consequence, companies usually fail in logging this type of information or they restrict the collection/retention to very small time periods. On the other hand, DNS Infrastructure is critical and can be used to launch attacks and/or for criminal intents.

Hence, being able to analyse DNS logs (potentially in conjunction with other logs) is key to identify attacks and misbehaviours.

Our demonstrator analyses DNS logs (currently only DNS queries, in the near future also DNS replies) and provides insights about potential security threats and issues. This is achieved via Historical (Security) Analytics and Visualization capabilities developed at HP Labs.

We fully leverage current HP Software and Security (HAVEn) solutions, Including HP ArcSight Logger, HP ArcSight ESM, HP Vertica and HP RepSM.

In the coming months we aim to:

·         Refine this solution by including advanced anomaly detection functions, trend analysis and machine learning, coupled with compelling visualization;

·         Process a wide range of data types, beyond DNS logs (e.g. web proxy logs, IPS logs, vulnerability scanning logs, user access logs, etc.)  along with related analytics;

·         Process and analyse unstructured data, by leveraging HP Autonomy;

·         Leverage distributed analytics solutions (including Hadoop) and advanced statistical tools (e.g. R).   

This is work in progress. We are currently showcasing this solution to HP customers and partners to gather additional requirements and feedback. More to come in the coming months.

--- Posted by Marco Casassa Mont (here and here)  ---

--- NOTE:  use this mirror blog if you prefer posting on an external blog site  ---

--- NOTE:  my original HP blog can be found here  ---

 

HP Labs SAaaS: Situational Awareness-as-a-Service

At HP Labs Bristol we are making good progress towards the development of a futuristic demonstrator in the space of Situational Awareness, named “Situational Awareness-as-a-Service (SAaaS).




This demonstrator focuses on the disaggregated IT of current/future organisations which increasingly rely on third parties (IaaS, SaaS providers in the Cloud, etc.) to carry out their IT and business activities.



We demonstrate the issues and opportunities related to safely handling information sharing between the organisation and its various providers, in a context of a future Next Generation IT Operation Centre and Security Operation Centre (SOC).



This includes illustrating the trade-offs in defining information sharing policies and handling queries to gather data from the involved parties, the clever analytics processing that can be performed on top of shared data (e.g. by leveraging HP Software solutions, HP/HPL SILAS, etc.) and the role of external, trusted information aggregators.



HP Labs will use the SAaaS vision to develop further innovative technologies in the area of controlled analytics and information sharing for large data sets.



The demonstrator currently consists of various storyboards focusing on IT and security information sharing stories. I am looking for public, real stories within organisations highlighting the pain points and issues in current disaggregated IT and security operations. The goal is to showcase them and illustrate how they could improve by leveraging SAaaS and future HPL/HP technologies.



--- Posted by Marco Casassa Mont (here and here) ---

--- NOTE: use this mirror blog if you prefer posting on an external blog site ---

--- NOTE: my original HP blog can be found here ---