Feds Look To Big Data On Security Questions

Government IT leaders believe the growth of big data analytics may provide new tools in combating cyber security threats, according to a new report.

The new report -- based on conversations with18 federal government IT leaders with expertise in big data, cybersecurity, and operations -- found that agencies are exploring the opportunities and threats emerging at the intersection of their big data and cybersecurity initiatives.

Experts from agencies including the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), General Services Administration (GSA), and NASA, discussed the emerging interplay between these two disciplines and other trends in a study conducted by MeriTalk, underwritten by Northrop Grumman.

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Federal agencies report a continuing shift to virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI) for greater data centralization and deploying "cloud hubs"-- a private-cloud infrastructure. Agencies are also expanding their cloud offerings, including the availability of analytics-as-a-service. The surveyed executives said they are deploying this information architecture in part to support big data implementations.

According to the report, continuous monitoring and advanced analytics can help agencies gain "unprecedented understanding of their networks and security posture." As big data and security infrastructures evolve, agencies will require dashboards that can aggregate input from different analytical tools.

"The technology that enables large-scale data analytics is rapidly evolving and still relatively expensive. Successive waves of hardware and software innovation in this space will drive out complexity and cost over time," Joseph Hungate, principal deputy inspector general of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, said in the report.

Down the road, "intelligent analytics" -- an engine that can ask and answer inquiries and issue alerts without requiring human input -- could act in lieu of highly trained data scientists, some government executives predicted. Most agencies today report that they don't have analytics engines that can interact with data and alert of impending danger at the same level as human scientists.

The report made several recommendations to agencies based on feedback from federal IT experts, such as:

The report reflects mounting interest in understanding the rise of big data and its impact on federal agencies. The White House in January launched a review of the growing use of big data analytics and its impact on privacy. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is conducting an in-depth study, which will be used to create a comprehensive report that encompasses future technological trends and key questions surrounding the collection, availability, and handling of big data.

Find out how a government program is putting cloud computing on the fast track to better security. Also in the Cloud Security issue of InformationWeek Government: Defense CIO Teri Takai on why FedRAMP helps everyone.