Supercomputers power cyber-as-a

Cybersecurity-as-a-service, powered by supercomputers analyzing huge volumes of network data, looks like the next big thing in enterprise defense.

Cybersecurity as a service, powered by supercomputers analyzing huge volumes of network data, looks like the next big thing in enterprise defense.

One such system, used by the U.S. military, is now available to commercial customers for the first time, said Barry Bolding, chief strategy officer at Cray Inc., which, in partnership with Deloitte Advisory, is offering the service.

‘We were selling to DOD and we starting talking to each other about a year ago … about how to provide this technology as a service’ to other customers, he told Cyberscoop.

Powered by Cray’s supercomputing technology, the Cyber Reconnaissance and Analytics service, as it’s dubbed, is a subscription-based offering for ‘open, analytic software that is big-data ready,’ according to Bolding.

The service is one of a number of products on the market that aim to use massive computing power to crunch large volumes of network data on a short enough time span that the analysis can be used for tactical defense.

U.S. Pacific Command is already a customer, using the service ‘to enable large-scale cyber data analytics to more proactively defend our networks,” said Clayton Jones, a cybersecurity adviser at the command headquarters.

The service crunches huge quantities of data about external and — if required — internal network flows, said Deloitte Advisory’s federal cyber risk services leader Deborah Golden. She said it had forensic and predictive or preventive value.

‘It’s looking for attacks that might have already occurred, and vulnerabilities’ that haven’t yet been exploited, she told FedScoop. ‘We tell our clients what to focus on.’

She said the enormous computing power meant the network analysis could be done in ‘near real time.’

‘We can see the clusters of behavior that might turn out to be attack activity,’ Golden said, revealing that ‘what looked like a single attack was in fact part of a larger campaign.’

She said the service ‘looks at your organization’s network the way adversary looks at it.’

‘It provides an outsider view,’ she said.

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• Jail time for Maine child in 764 marks turning point in federal law enforcement

Technology

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

• The Collective Cyber Defense letter wrote your next vendor questionnaire

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure