Brianne Fahey

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Weak Connections

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Maybe the source of the problem is not where there is the most noise…

I’ve got an idea percolating but I’m not sure how to model it yet. Apologies up front for not being super-specific, if I can reason out enough pieces of this idea I will hopefully harness it for a paper I’m planning to write later this year.

Some types of attacks have so much human behavior in them that there is no system rule you can put in place to detect.  I was watching some videos from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and I stopped on Kathy Lavinder’s “Power of Weak Connections” on YouTube. She says that it is not always your strong, personal connections in your professional network that help you get news jobs – it is the weak connections with people who know you just enough to help move a resume or an inquiry into the right hands.

There is energy and opportunity in the kinetic connections between two sources. But what if the crux of the opportunity is in the weak connection rather than the strong connection? Does this idea carry into the cyber attacks and fraud detection?

Visualize

I’d like to analyze that data, and see the strengths of the connections.  Does the hypothesis of the weak connection providing a strong vector hold up under the math?  I’m reading about UML and graph databases to look for a way to re-categorize some existing data in order to redraw and reexamine the connections.  It seems soft to compare a fraud or cyber attack to a business process modeling method, although I am certain I will learn something and I’m looking forward to applying some old techniques in a slightly different way.

 

Learning is Living

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There are so many things I want to know…

I regularly scan for stories and use cases that will inspire good work and sharpen what I can offer.  As a result, I read about a lot of tools and theories that I am not familiar with.  Knowledge requires information and growth requires experience.  I’ve always been a fan of the idea of writing down any term or acronym you see or hear in use and if you don’t have a chance to ask about it immediately – Google it later.

Today is always a good day to start.

Personally I keep a running list of things I want to lean more about.  That way when I see an opportunity to pick up an ebook, watch some recorded convention talks on YouTube or take advantage of a training deal, I know where to start. Because the list is sometimes overwhelming, I use a priority system that keeps me focused. Chris Sanders offered a fantastic discount on his Applied Network Defense courses at the end of 2017 and I could not pass up the opportunity to learn from him.  I saw Chris speak at BSides Cincy this summer about Curiosity as a necessary analyst skill. He is intelligent and inspiring.  Plus he knows what the heck he’s doing and I love his philanthropy goals for the Rural Tech Fund.

All this is shaping my early 2018 personal learning plan around these 3 Applied Network Defense Courses:

Some of Chris Sanders’ Applied Network Defense Courses

Keep building yourself.

I know I have a lot to learn.  I keep pushing myself to ask questions, admit when I need to do more research, and listen to the inputs of my friends and colleagues.  Listen to the experts and those willing to teach, like Chris Sanders. It will stoke your curiosity and possibly even inspire you.