December 10, 2024
In Frank Herbert’s classic Dune, Paul Atreides’s martial arts instructor discusses knife fighting and a “feint within a feint.” Today, we apply for this martial art tactic in federal information technology.
Malicious actors are flooding networks with false attacks, which are, in essence, feints with knives. Digital technology can multiply this activity, or noise, to such an extent that the real attack may be missed.
The question is: How can we differentiate between the noise and the actual attack?
Today, we have Chris Howard and Zach Vaugh, two experts from Vectra AI. They explain Vectra AI’s approach to understanding threat attack intelligence.
"the amount of data generated by that traffic alone far exceeds the capacity for human analysis to interact with . . . it's finding a needle within a stack of needles, trying to differentiate that"
For the past fourteen years, Vectra AI has focused on this noise-to-signal ratio, garnering some thirty-five patents in this endeavor.
They understand the nuances of code morphing, lateral movement, and something curiously called “living off the land.” As a result, they alert a manager to suspicious activity; leaders can be assured they are not dealing with a false alarm.
This innovation is important today because Zero Trust is being implemented today. The concept is to allow the right person to have the right data at the right time. How do you know the data has not been injected with malicious code?
If you enjoyed this episode, then you may want to listen to:
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EP 208 – Innovation with OSCAL, Federal Cloud, and Compliance
Relevance: Discusses how innovative frameworks like OSCAL are helping manage complexity and compliance—key aspects in federal AI adoption. -
EP 206 – An Argument for Enterprise Design for Secure Collaboration
Relevance: Connects enterprise architecture with the need to simplify and secure AI use across federal environments.
