Technology has brought the world a great deal of good, but the downside is that we’re increasingly vulnerable to some seriously scary stuff:

• Terrorists taking control of airplanes through the in-flight entertainment system.
• Governments breaking into secure systems and stealing identities.
• Thugs messing with the steering of self-driving cars.

When everything is connected, everything can be attacked. I’m talking about the unique brand of mayhem caused by the really bad guys – the kind of people who want to bring down a stock exchange, tamper with nuclear weapons or spoil a city’s water supply. If it sounds like the plot of a James Bond movie, it should, because cybercriminals can and do create chaos on a cinematic level.

Whenever I hear these stories, I have mixed emotions. As a citizen concerned with protecting everything I hold dear, I share the very same concerns that you do. But I also have a front-seat view of developments in the field of cybersecurity, so I understand the amazing power of analytics to address what is surely one of the most complicated computer science challenges of our times. And that makes me optimistic.

Cybersecurity to the rescue

The way that we will thwart the evil masterminds is analytics. We’ll fight technology with technology.

The key to winning is prevention. The nature of the cyberthreat means it’s no longer enough to reinforce the perimeter. Stopping data breaches means assuming that criminals are already inside. In this new reality, analytics serve not as a barricade to keep criminals out, but an alarm that sounds when the virus they’ve implanted awakes.

Today the combination of event stream processing, Hadoop, in-memory analytics and visual analytics make it possible to react in near real time, helping you spot the bad guys and foil their attempts. SAS has recently unveiled a cybersecurity solution to do just that, which will be available this fall. It works by searching hundreds of thousands of records per second and billions per day to spot the inevitable threats.

Plenty of companies try to build fences to keep people out, but we don’t do that. As soon as the virus wakes up and begins to do its thing, SAS will find it immediately and alert security teams – before the doomsday scenario plays out. The thing about villains is, they never seem to rest. They’re wily, they’re malicious, and they’re going to keep coming at us. The stakes are very high.

When it comes to foiling intricate plots, we’re going to need serious brainpower and cutting-edge analytics. That’s why I’m so passionate about bringing SAS’ expertise in cybersecurity to customers around the world.

Learn more

• SAS CMO Jim Davis on defending against cyberattacks.
• Research shows that stopping cyberattacks demands better grasp of big data, more proactive analytics.