Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

CIA Invests In Anti-Cybercrime Startup

Posted by samzenpus on from the silent-partners dept.

wiredmikey writes "Launched by the CIA in 1999, In-Q-Tel's mission is to identify and partner with companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve the national security interests of the United States. In-Q-Tel has invested an undisclosed sum in Silver Tail Systems, an emerging online fraud prevention and analytics company, an investment they say enables them to offer powerful technology companies in the US intelligence community and further protect the nation's assets."

3 of 38 comments (clear)

  1. Silver Tail Systems by cappp · · Score: 3, Insightful
    If you're wondering what Silver Tail does: TFA provides the following

    “Silver Tail Systems solution monitors website traffic and identifies anomalies in real-time. Their unique system creates models of what is normal traffic for a website’s population and uses that to identify threats,” said William Strecker, Executive Vice President of Architecture & Engineering and CTO at IQT. “Our strategic investment in Silver Tail Systems enables us to offer this powerful technology to our customers in the U.S. intelligence Community and further protect our Nation’s assets.”

    Silver Tails own website adds

    New ways of combating fraud: The global threat landscape is rapidly changing and evolving. Sophisticated criminals always find ways around traditional fraud protection solutions. Silver Tail Systems has technology which monitors all web traffic and detects what is normal website behavior and what behavior is looking anomalous according to user statistics constantly updated by the hour. This real-time monitoring helps combating fraud as it emerges. Receiving alerts about suspicious web traffic lets the website administrator quickly identify the type of threat occurring and investigate the attempted attack. Once an attack is identified easy rules will divert the bad actors in real-time, protecting the website from being compromised.

    Any of the techy people feel like explaining this to the rest of us? Am I exposing my ignorance by assuming it's basically a giant spreadsheet comparing whats happening now with what happened then?

  2. Suspicious? by aaaaaaargh! · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In future, better not do anything suspicious like clicking on the wrong links or visit a website in an unusual order! Because that might get you killed by an unmanned aerial vehicle... However, no need to worry about the government. As long as you do exactly the same as everybody else, you're completely safe.

  3. Not just fraud by nomad-9 · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Apart from that specific article, the more important point IMO is that IQT's mission is not just "fraud", but whatever is supposed to serve "national security". The latter being increasingly used as an excuse to monitor as many people as possible.

    In 2009 for example, IQT invested in a company called "Visible Technologies" which specialized in social media monitoring & tracking, such as the monitoring of blog posts or tweets. Another company IQT invested in, "Recorded Future" , extracted "time and event information from the Web". Another one would be "Attensity, with its own web 2.0-monitoring service.etc...

    Nothing really new here: extensive Web monitoring & electronic surveillance by Big Brother in the name of cybersecurity. Dubious overall efficiency but enormous potential for privacy violations.