Technology that predicts your next security fail

  • 15 September 2015
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There's both art and science to predictive analytics in a security setting, early adopters say.

 
By Sandra Gittlen
 Computerworld | Sep 15, 2015
 
In 2013, the IRS paid out $5.8 billion in refunds for tax filings it later realized were fraudulent, according to a 2015 report by the Government Accountability Office. This news comes as no surprise to the Kentucky Department of Revenue, which is stepping up its own war against rising fraud cases with predictive analytics.
Predictive analytics uses publicly available and privately sourced data to try to determine future actions. By analyzing what has already happened, organizations can detect what is likely to happen before anything affects the security of the organization's physical infrastructure, human capital or intellectual property.
 
The Kentucky Department of Revenue (DOR) already had an automated batch process in place that searched for signs of fraud based on certain criteria, which the department won't disclose. Even with the old system, the DOR was able to stop $8 million to $10 million in fraudulent tax filings but "there was more to do," according to Melody Tudor, revenue tax policy research consultant for the DOR. "Fraudsters are getting smarter and smarter."
Tudor and her team brought in SAS's Fraud Framework for Government Tax Enforcement software and consultants to explore how predictive analytics could harden the agency's defenses. They provided SAS with six years of data and asked SAS to come back with something different from the checklist they already had in place. Tudor wasn't sure they would turn up anything, but she says she would have considered that outcome a validation of the work her team had already done.
 
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