Monitoring potential criminals or terrorists, and developing counter threats, whether physical or cyber, is increasingly becoming a matter of data analytics.
Telegram, Gab, MeWe, WIMKIN, CloutHub, SecondFirst, Minds, Rumble Signal, even IRC channels, DLive – there's all of these new mobile chat applications popping up, these centralized applications popping up. It's actually making law enforcement’s job that much more difficult, to ensure that they're part of these conversations, that they're on these platforms, where they legally can be.
Senior Vice President of Global Intelligence, Recorded Future
When we onboard our clients, the first thing we do is customization and tailoring of intelligence requirements that the client has. At its core Recorded Future is alerting, monitoring or searching. The alerting capability is very powerful. We can automate alerting through an API.
Senior Vice President of Global Intelligence, Recorded Future
Monitoring potential criminals or terrorists, and developing counter threats, whether physical or cyber, is increasingly becoming a matter of data analytics. Nowadays every domain of criminal activity – for example, crimes against children, financial, trafficking in illegal drugs or firearms, or deliberate disinformation campaigns – have a cyber nexus.
That’s according to Levi Gundert, a former federal law enforcement agent and now the senior vice president for global intelligence at Recorded Future.
In this video, Gundert explains why it follows that the more widely law enforcement agencies search potentially relevant sources of data, the earlier they can learn about and understand threats.
What makes this difficult is the ever-expanding number of potential data sources that need monitoring, more than the average agent can keep up with and more than agency systems can accommodate.
Gundert rattled off a sample list of where conversations among bad actors can potentially place beyond the usual suspects of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Applications like Telegram, Gab, WeMe, WIMKIN, CloutHub, Minds, Rumble, DLive, and Signal have all popped up as alternatives to the popular social media sites. Some schemes still use Internet Relay Chat channels.
“There is just an enormous amount of data that has to be collected and processed and analyzed,” Gundert said. “The fact the matter is that it’s basically impossible to do that at scale, without some pretty significant technology brought to bear on that problem.”
He added that pressure is increasing on law enforcement to be more out in front of threats, following the breach of the U.S. Capitol in January. Yet monitoring and gathering of extramural data sources must be done within strict legal boundaries, and in such a way as to support potential litigation. And, all of this data and analytics must be handled so it doesn’t overwhelm agency operators, Gundert said.
Recorded Future can help because it monitors tens of thousand of open and closed data sources. It can organize the resulting data for agency subscribers, and using APIs, enable agencies to structure alerts for when the analytics detect something. Or it can help discover ways law criminal networks enforcement might want to legally infiltrate networks by joining and gaining trust.
“When you start with proactive intelligence,” Gundert said, “law enforcement can take things to the last mile because they have tools at their disposal. They can start with great intelligence. Then they can use those tools, whether it be subpoenas or search warrants, to further their investigation. Ultimately, they’re able to start pulling on the thread, and develop an investigation off of quality intelligence.”
Listen to the full show:
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