Cyber security is more important than ever in today’s business environment. Cyber crimes like phishing, ransomware, and data breaches can cost companies millions of dollars annually, so investing in cyber security measures is a necessity. Big data analytics in cyber security offers a way to make your cyber security more modern and effective while saving time and money. 

Traditional cyber security software and tools alone don’t provide enough protection because they can’t keep up against the increasingly sophisticated and fast-moving cyber threats facing businesses today. Big data analytics is the best method for improving your enterprise’s cyber security measures.  

How Cyber Security and Data Analytics Work Together

The goal of data analytics in general is to give decision-makers a clearer picture of what’s happening inside and outside of their organizations. Data analytics in cyber security focuses on providing business leaders insights about what’s going on within their organizations’ networks and systems using multiple sources of data. The better your team understands what’s going on within your company networks, the better equipped you are to shut down cyber security threats. 

Hidden within the vast amounts of data most companies have access to — including user behavior data, operating system event logs, and endpoint data — is information that those companies can use to predict and detect emergent cyber security risks. You can use analytics in cyber security to find vulnerabilities in your systems, identify possible risks, predict future attacks, and evaluate remedies for those cyber attacks.

Why is Cyber Security Analytics Necessary?

Year after year, the number of cyber attacks and data breaches increases. Business leaders know they need to do something to counter these threats or risk losing up to millions of dollars in each successful cyber attack. Cyber security analytics provides a window into the cyber threats facing your company so you can take steps to minimize their impact. 

A single vulnerability in your systems can allow a cyber attacker to get in and hurt your company. As cyber attacks advance, threats can often go undetected for long periods before an incident occurs. Cyber security analytics helps you prevent these threats from becoming costly.

Benefits of Cyber Security Analytics

Perhaps the biggest advantage of analytics in cyber security is that it allows you to respond to cyber threats faster in the event an attack does occur. Time is of the essence when dealing with cyber attacks, and data analysis can help you detect these attacks and start addressing them as quickly as possible to reduce their impact. Manual threat monitoring just doesn’t offer the same fast responses. 

Other benefits of cloud analytics in cyber security include:

Maintaining Regulatory Compliance

Depending on your industry, you may be subject to several government and industry regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI-DSS. Cloud analytics can help you meet the requirements of those regulations like log collection and activity monitoring. Advanced data analytics can also alert you of potential non-compliance to keep your company on track and ensure you avoid costly regulatory fees. 

Enhanced Forensic Capabilities

If you do suffer a cyber attack, there will likely be internal and external investigations to figure out exactly what happened and how. Security analytics tools can collect and present data throughout an entire attack sequence to provide a full picture of the attack. These tools will help you identify where the attack started, which users and/or programs were affected, and what data was stolen (if any). 

Automated Threat Intelligence

Even the best cyber security professionals take time to manually gather intelligence on potential cyber security threats and determine the best ways to address them. Cyber security analytics can protectively detect incidents and automate threat intelligence to ensure your business is always ready to address cyber security threats as they arise. Data analytics also reduces manual errors and makes it possible to monitor large data sets in real time. 

Prioritized Alerts

Not all cyber security incidents require the same level of response. Data analysis can offer prioritized alerts about cyber security threats so you can respond appropriately. These prioritized alerts will help your team address the most damaging threats first instead of losing valuable time and resources responding to less important alerts. 

Use Cases for Cyber Security Analytics

Businesses can apply cyber security analytics in several key ways including:

• Fraud Detection: Data analysis techniques paired with machine learning can immediately detect possible instances of fraud and flag them for further investigation. They identify fraud patterns and provide early warnings for incidents that contain fraud indicators. 
• Network Traffic Analysis: Most modern enterprises deal with incredibly high volumes of traffic moving in and out of their networks constantly. It’s difficult to keep track of all this traffic manually, but security analytics makes it possible to analyze the traffic and establish security baselines. 
• Insider Threat Analysis: Unfortunately, cyber threats to your business can come from within your organization, not just from outside cyber criminals. A malicious user in your network or even just a neglectful one can cause serious, costly damage just like an external cyber attack. Cyber security analytics helps you monitor and predict insider threats by flagging behaviors like unusual login times, unauthorized database access, or abnormal email usage. 

In Conclusion

Cloud analytics in cyber security is the way forward to boost your cyber security framework. This strategy combines the best of data analytics and cyber security, leading to a modern, effective solution to the rising threat of damaging cyber attacks. 

Security analytics not only contributes to better preparation against threats but also offers prioritized security alerts so you can respond to attacks as quickly as possible and limit damage to your organization. The bottom line is that there’s incredible security value stored in the data you collect and security analytics is the best way to access it. Live Earth’s data analytics platform will help you get the most out of your data to protect your enterprise against cyber security threats. You can visualize real-time data across multiple systems to monitor your systems and up your cyber security.  To learn more, Contact Us today.