Learning to Predict Cyber Attacks

ABOUT

In today’s connected world, information of every hue––intellectual property, health records, personal communications, government records, financial information––is accessible over the Internet and other networks. The nearly ubiquitous and on-demand access to a wide variety of information has given rise to an array of services that improve individual and organizational efficiencies, and our overall quality of life. At the same time, such open access poses substantial risk to individuals and organizations, as has been demonstrated by recent high-profile hacking events.

The University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI) is sponsored by IARPA under the CAUSE program to research technologies that will counter cyber threats by anticipating them before they manifest in the form of an actual attack. The EFFECT research team, led by USC/ISI, includes a team of experts from Arizona State University, Raytheon BBN, Hyperion Gray, Lockheed Martin ATL, Ruhr University Bochum. The team is exploring methods to forecast cyberattacks by integrating information from a variety of sensors within a robust machine inference framework.

To find traces of early planning activity by malicious actors, researchers will collect data from unconventional sources, that include dark web and social media sites, forum discussions and others, develop methods to deal with large volumes of heterogeneous information that include unstructured natural language text, structured data, and public network traffic data, and analyze these data streams to generate robust warnings of pending cyberattacks.

The age-old saying to be forewarned is to be forearmed rings particularly true in the case of cyber threats. For society to continue enjoying the benefits of an open, worldwide Internet, it is critical that we tame the rapidly growing cyber threats posed by a variety of state and non-state actors.

PEOPLE

PUBLICATIONS

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  2018 (5)
DarkEmbed: Exploit Prediction with Neural Language Models. Tavabi, N.; Goyal, P.; Almukaynizi, M.; Shakarian, P.; and Lerman, K. In Thirty-Second AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2018.
DarkEmbed: Exploit Prediction with Neural Language Models [link]Link   DarkEmbed: Exploit Prediction with Neural Language Models [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex   18 downloads  
Community Finding of Malware and Exploit Vendors on Darkweb Marketplaces. Marin, E.; Almukaynizi, M.; Nunes, E.; and Shakarian, P. In 2018 1st International Conference on Data Intelligence and Security (ICDIS), 2018.
Community Finding of Malware and Exploit Vendors on Darkweb Marketplaces [link]Link   Community Finding of Malware and Exploit Vendors on Darkweb Marketplaces [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex   7 downloads  
DISCOVER: Mining Online Chatter for Emerging Cyber Threats. Sapienza, A.; Ernala, S. K.; Bessi, A.; Lerman, K.; and Ferrara, E. In The Third Workshop on Computational Methods in CyberSafety, Online Harassment and Misinformation, 2018.
DISCOVER: Mining Online Chatter for Emerging Cyber Threats [link]Link   DISCOVER: Mining Online Chatter for Emerging Cyber Threats [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex   8 downloads  
Mining Key-Hackers on Darkweb Forums. Marin, E.; Shakarian, J.; and Shakarian, P. In 2018 1st International Conference on Data Intelligence and Security (ICDIS), 2018.
Mining Key-Hackers on Darkweb Forums [link]Link   Mining Key-Hackers on Darkweb Forums [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex   8 downloads  
Graph embedding techniques, applications, and performance: A survey. Goyal, P.; and Ferrara, E. In Knowledge-Based Systems, Volume 151, 1 July 2018, Pages 78-94, 2018.
Graph embedding techniques, applications, and performance: A survey [link]Link   Graph embedding techniques, applications, and performance: A survey [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex   3 downloads  
  2017 (6)
Crisis and Collective Problem Solving in Dark Web: An Exploration of a Black Hat Forum. Kwon, K. H.; Priniski, J. H.; Sarkar, S.; Shakarian, J.; and Shakarian, P. In 9th International Conference on Social Media & Society, 2017.
Crisis and Collective Problem Solving in Dark Web: An Exploration of a Black Hat Forum [link]Link   link   bibtex   2 downloads  
Predicting Cyber Threats through Hacker Social Networks in Darkweb and Deepweb Forums. Almukaynizi, M.; Grimm, A.; Nunes, E.; Shakarian, J.; and Shakarian, P. In Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference of The Computational Social Science Society of the Americas, 2017.
Predicting Cyber Threats through Hacker Social Networks in Darkweb and Deepweb Forums [link]Link   link   bibtex   2 downloads  
Proactive Identification of Exploits in the Wild through Vulnerability Mentions Online. Almukaynizi, M.; Nunes, E.; Dhariya, K.; Senguttuvan, M.; Shakarian, J.; and Shakarian, P. In 2017 International Conference on Cyber Conflict (CyCon U.S.), 2017.
Proactive Identification of Exploits in the Wild through Vulnerability Mentions Online [link]Link   Proactive Identification of Exploits in the Wild through Vulnerability Mentions Online [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex   1 download  
Early Warnings of Cyber Threats in Online Discussions. Sapienza, A.; Bessi, A.; Damodaran, S.; Shakarian, P.; Lerman, K.; and Ferrara, E. In 2017 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshops (ICDMW), 2017.
Early Warnings of Cyber Threats in Online Discussions [link]Link   Early Warnings of Cyber Threats in Online Discussions [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex   8 downloads  
Early Warning Generation for Cyber Threats from Online Discussions. Bessi, A.; Sapienza, A.; Lerman, K.; Shakarian, P.; and Ferrara, E. In DMCS - Data Mining for Cyber Security 2017, 2017.
Early Warning Generation for Cyber Threats from Online Discussions [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex  
Predicting Cyber Threats through the Dynamics of User Connectivity in Darkweb and Deepweb Forums. Almukaynizi, M.; Grimm, A.; Nunes, E.; Shakarian, J.; and Shakarian, P. In ACM Computational Social Science (CSS-2017), 2017.
Predicting Cyber Threats through the Dynamics of User Connectivity in Darkweb and Deepweb Forums [pdf]Paper   link   bibtex   4 downloads  

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

EFFECT is supported by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) via the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) contract number FA8750-16-C-0112. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright annotation thereon. Disclaimer: The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of ODNI, IARPA, AFRL, or the U.S. Government.