Intelligence organizations carry out specialized programs to conduct national security and foreign relations activities, and protect their country’s security interests against foreign threats.
This includes the collection and analysis of critical information about hostile activities carried out by

•  International terrorists;
•  Foreign powers and organizations; and
•  Foreign intelligence agencies

In the United States, the intelligence community is responsible for protecting the country from multi-vector cyber threats, covering malicious actors seeking to penetrate networks through insiders or external players, and preventing potential threats hidden within the information supply chain.

“Technological advances and the Internet’s expansion will continue to empower malicious cyber actors to harm US national security through criminal and intelligence activities. We must maintain our ability to keep pace with this rapidly developing technology,” said Robert Mueller, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to General Keith Alexander, Commander, U.S. Cyber Command and Director, National Security Agency, cyber security is one of the most important issues facing the United States today. He also stated that cyberspace has become a critical enabler for all elements of national and military power.

Cyber security is clearly an issue that has come to the forefront of the intelligence sector, and certainly one for which Narus is pleased to be a part of the solution.  

The State of the Industry 

The U.S. intelligence information infrastructure is susceptible to foreign as well as domestic attacks; the breadth of our information architecture makes security breaches nearly inevitable. Assuring the integrity of the intelligence community’s networks is absolutely essential to national security.

•  Cyber attacks on U.S. financial and government systems are a real national security threat. The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber attack, according to CIA Director Leon Panetta. Extremists in Iran, Russia, and China are developing “a significant capacity” to stage cyber attacks against the U.S. “Hundreds of thousands” of attempts are being made to sneak into national security networks.
•  Rapid technological advances, evolving usage patterns, and skyrocketing adoption rates of new communications platforms are opening new entry points into critical networks and infrastructure.
•  Physical threats to nations are now planned and executed in the cyber world.

The Challenge

Successful cyber attacks can destabilize financial markets, compromise electric and power systems, and undermine information systems, military responses, critical infrastructure and critical responders during times of crisis (such as earthquakes, floods or hurricanes). These attacks can compromise the integrity of our national networks that we all rely on so heavily for business and everyday life, and, as a direct result, threaten the security of our country.

•  High-level management of cyberspace is now critical to national security, not simply a nice-to-have
•  A real-time situational awareness of the infrastructure is needed to understand and mitigate the new risks, and to provide a path for attribution through precision targeting and detailed forensic analysis
•  Sophisticated criminals, state-sponsored espionage, and persistent, patient attacks can slip past firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and other traditional cyber defense systems
•  Internal threats (e.g. exfiltration, rogue servers and applications) are as real and potentially damaging as external threat

The Solution

Intelligence agencies need a comprehensive operating view of the traffic transiting their networks in order to complete their missions. Governments must also consider the issue of intelligence and surveillance associated with tracking cyber criminals and thwarting their efforts, whether those efforts are focused on commercial, political, or other more serious crimes.

Narus has established itself as the leader in dynamic network traffic intelligence space with its flagship product NarusInsight™. The Narus system includes the following solutions:

•  NarusInsight™ Solution for Cyber Protection
•  NarusInsight™ Solution for Intercept
•  NarusInsight™ Solution for Traffic Management

In addition, the intelligence community can use our SDKs/APIs and toolkits to create their own unique, customized cyber security applications.

Benefits

NarusInsight uses dynamic network traffic intelligence and patented analytics to look at the “digital DNA” (i.e., the behavior) of the network to detect deviations and anomalous traffic patterns. This enables the intelligence community to enhance their investigative capabilities and protect critical network infrastructure from malicious cyber intrusions as well as improve analysis of digital evidence.

•  The Solution for Cyber Protection can help intelligence community analysts prevent serious cyber intrusions into intelligence networks by detecting cyber attacks early and quickly identifying a range of threats, especially exfiltration (unauthorized transfer of information from a computer). With Narus’ anomaly detection system, zero-day attacks can be identified and mitigated, thus enabling information assurance specialists to stay ahead of their agile adversaries. Narus also works with select partners to provide the intelligence community with additional analysis and visualization tools, for example a near real-time search capability that complements Narus’s real-time analytics. This enables security analysts to rapidly search through, query, and analyze the massive volumes of network traffic to gain a profound understanding of the data and identify new threats to their operations.

•  The Solution for Intercept can help the intelligence community precisely target suspicious and criminal activity and prevent exfiltration of intellectual property. This solution also enables forensic data capture and analysis.

•  The Solution for Traffic Management can help the analysts address advanced persistent threats and provide the investigative tools needed for analysis of digital evidence

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