Using Machine Learning to support Information Security [Mentored by Joel Wilbanks]

Big Data, Data Science, Machine Learning and Analytics are a few of the new buzzwords that have invaded out industry of late. Again we are being sold a unicorn-laden, silver-bullet panacea by heavy handed marketing folks, evoking an expected pushback from the most enlightened members of our community.

However, as was the case before, there might just be enough technical meat in there to help out with our security challenges and the overwhelming odds we face everyday. And if so, what do we as a community have to know about these technologies in order to be better professionals? Can we really use the data we have been collecting to help automate our security decision making? Is a robot going to steal my job?

If you are interested in what is behind this marketing buzz and are not scared of a little math (not crypto, though ), this talk would like to address some insights into applying Machine Learning techniques to data any of us have easy access to, and try to bring home the point that if all of this technology can be used to show us “better” ads in social media and track our behavior online (and a bit more than that) it can also be used to defend our networks as well.

Presented by