Hands-On Machine Learning for Cybersecurity

Time series trends and seasonal spikes

Time series analysis can be used to detect attack attempts, like failed logins, using a time series model. Plotting login attempts identifies spikes (/) in failed logins. Such spikes are indicative of account takeover (ATO).

Time series identify another cyber security use case—data exfiltration is the process in which the unauthorized transfer of data takes place from a computer system to a malicious location. Time series can identify huge network data packets being transported out of the network. Data exfiltration could be because of either an outsider compromise or an insider threat. In a later section of the chapter, we will use ensemble learning methods to identify the source of the attack.

We will ...