Graph based visualisation supports the exploration of complex data sets, to identify new insights or correlate data based on specific criteria. This presentation demonstrates how graph based visualisation can support the discovery of new insights in two unrelated domains: cyber kill chains and ad-networks.

Cyber kill chains demonstrate the various stages of attacks and the associated adversarial tactics, techniques and procedures. Despite their structured and supposedly linear nature, the cyber kill chains associated with sophisticated threat actors can be complex and challenging for practitioners to fully understand.

Ad-networks aim to to profile, track and monitor our use of the Internet, to tailor ads and monetise our usage to support free internet services. On the face of it this seems like a fair trade-off, consumers get free apps, storage, email services etc, in exchange for their data. Unfortunately, ad-networks are largely unregulated and opaque. This makes understanding who is profiling Internet users, aggregating and trading their data challenging.

This presentation will detail how the application of graph based visualisations has the potential to address these challenges.

About Our Speaker

Dr Rob Hegarty is a computer scientist with a background in academic research. He has recently joined BT as an Innovation Engineering Professional.

Rob’s research interest range across the often contradictory domains of cyber security, digital forensics and privacy. Rob enjoys developing solutions to both established and emerging technological challenges.

His current focus is the application of graph based data visualisation to cyber kill chains and ad-networks. The visualisations produced by this work will support exploration of these areas by practitioners and the wider research community.

Rob’s hobbies outside of his research include; home automation, aircraft tracking via ADSB, mountain biking and motorcycling.