Metadata Could Play Integral Role in Data Security

February 2, 2016

A friend recently told me how they can go months avoiding suspicious emails, spyware, and Web sites on her computer, but the moment she hands her laptop over to her father he downloads a virus within an hour.  Despite the technology gap existing between generations, the story goes to show how easy it is to deceive and steal information these days.  ExpertClick thinks that metadata might hold the future means for cyber security in “What Metadata And Data Analytics Mean For Data Security-And Beyond.”

The article uses biological analogy to explain metadata’s importance: “One of my favorite analogies is that of data as proteins or molecules, coursing through the corporate body and sustaining its interrelated functions. This analogy has a special relevance to the topic of using metadata to detect data leakage and minimize information risk — but more about that in a minute.”

This plays into new companies like, Ayasdi, using data to reveal new correlations using different methods than the standard statistical ones.  The article compares this to getting to the data atomic level, where data scientists will be able to separate data into different elements and increase the analysis complexity.

“The truly exciting news is that this concept is ripe for being developed to enable an even deeper type of data analytics. By taking the ‘Shape of Data’ concept and applying to a single character of data, and then capturing that shape as metadata, one could gain the ability to analyze data at an atomic level, revealing a new and unexplored frontier. Doing so could bring advanced predictive analytics to cyber security, data valuation, and counter- and anti-terrorism efforts — but I see this area of data analytics as having enormous implications in other areas as well.”

There are more devices connected to the Internet than ever before and 2016 could be the year we see a significant rise in cyber attacks.  New ways to interpret data will leverage predictive and proactive analytics to create new ways to fight security breaches.

Whitney Grace, February 2, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

 

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