Big Data becomes the best antidote to cyberattacks

They say that information is power. And Big Data is the art of analyzing a large amount of data, both structured and unstructured, that floods companies, governments, associations and foundations every day, processing, monitoring and managing it. Information that, studied and well organized, can help make better corporate decisions and detect possible cyber attacks.

According to the Data Age 2025 study, prepared by the IDC consultancy, by the year 2025 more than 163 zetabytes of data will have been created in the world, a figure that multiplies by 10 the data recorded in 2016. And, according to the report, 20% of all this data will be critical to the daily lives of people and companies.

These numbers not only give you goosebumps, but they also invite you to think of Big Data as a key tool to put all this data in order, analyze it, process it and get the most out of it; as well as preserving them to avoid being used maliciously and using them to anticipate cyber-attacks.

* Big Data is usually accompanied by Artificial Intelligence, two technologies that complement each other very effectively and together serve to protect against any threat

The Big Data solution

And it is precisely the attacks that companies and governments are now concerned with, as this malware are becoming more sophisticated and numerous, and traditional analysis tools no longer work. As IDC points out in its Big Data and Predictive Analytics report: On the cybersecurity line, the number of attacks continues to increase, the types of threats as well and the forms of attack have grown and diversified. Against this background, the only way to fight against cyberattacks is by also sophisticated prevention, diagnosis and solution strategies.

They say that a system can only be destroyed from within. And you can only stop cyber criminals if you know their ways and patterns. Something possible, thanks to Big Data. Businesses know it, especially after the latest scares of last year, and that is why they are increasingly careful with the information they handle.

Big Data is postulated as the best solution to avoid attacks. And the reasons are not lacking:

1. Detect trends and social phenomena thanks to the analysis of massive data collected from large platforms and networks.
2. It serves as a forecasting tool. Like a seismometer, Big Data can anticipate cyberattacks thanks to the study of data and the configuration of patterns. In this way, it increases and adapts prevention and response to any threat.
3. Monitor secure systems in real-time and track possible security breaches.
4. It shortens reaction and defence times, in addition to making visible both the history and the real-time activity of the endpoints.
5. Improves analytical capacity and processes, automatically classifying processes, events and other files.
6. Perform forensic analysis of threats and attacks.

Hervé Lambert, Global Retail Product Manager at Panda Security, assures that Big Data “allows changing and improving security paradigms and thus creating intelligent cybersecurity platforms designed to eradicate advanced threats.” Artificial Intelligence usually accompanies big Data, two technologies that complement each other very effectively and together serve to protect against any threat. If Big Data makes it possible to collect and analyze the large volume of data that is generated every day, artificial intelligence considerably improves the detection of problems, shortening response times for better defence. Panda Security, for example, uses this combo to monitor, analyze and classify 100% of the processes executed by the devices, thus offering a complete and in-depth analysis of all computer activity to determine each process as goodware or as malware.

Machine learning, an evolved model of artificial intelligence, “allows us to analyze vast amounts of data and detect patterns of behaviour. In this way, the security system learns and never forgets: the more data it collects, the smarter it is,” explains Lambert.

The best treatment for cyberattacks

Big Data, therefore, is presented as the best antidote for the prevention of malicious attacks. Still, it can also serve as an effective treatment for computers when they are already infected. As with the human body, detecting the attack in the early stages is not the same as in the latter, when the equipment is already damaged. With Big Data, we can automatically and periodically analyze large-scale data to have information about the health status of the device in real-time. In this way, and if any attack or virus is infecting the system, measures can be taken to eradicate the problem.

And this is the most sensitive part within the cybersecurity area since it is the phase in which the human being intervenes the most, who must determine the solutions to implement to stop the problem. And the more data you have and the more structured they are, the more accurate your decision will be.

Big Data is no longer the future, because the future is now, and this technology is required to protect society both in its daily life and in its business aspect. Threats will continue to find new ways to compromise devices and only by getting ahead of these hackers can we overcome these attacks.

[Also Read: 7 EXAMPLES OF COMPANIES THAT USE BIG DATA TO THEIR FAVOR]