Identifying "Lone Wolves" on the Web

The Cobwebs Technologies Company that offers intelligence solutions for organizations worldwide has introduced a new development for the security market that identifies "ticking time bombs" on the web

Identifying "Lone Wolves" on the Web

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Intelligence agencies worldwide are recently generating a growing demand for innovative web intelligence technologies that would help them identify potential suspects and terrorists. Organizations around the world are hard at work trying to acquire and develop more effective means for locating 'Lone Wolf' type attackers even before they launch their attacks, by monitoring their activities on the web.

"The terrorist attacks staged in Europe and the USA recently have raised concerns in those countries as well as in other countries regarding attackers that do not necessarily have prior connections with any terrorist organizations, and it is more difficult for the intelligence agencies to track and spot them before they actually stage a terrorist attack," says Udi Levi, CEO and co-founder of Cobwebs Technologies. "The basic assumption is that incitement, radicalization and recruitment on the Internet have a significant influence on the surge of recent terrorist attacks around the world and that those regarded as 'Lone Wolves' who operated independently of any established organization, are in fact associated with a community that incites, recruits and operates such individuals through the Internet. Terrorist organizations utilize the social media, forums and even the Dark Net. They learned how to operate effectively and use Western style messages to recruit, through the Internet, civilians from around the world."

The need that arises from the intelligence agencies concerns the ability to obtain information regarding the utilization of the web by the terrorist organizations; regarding the use of the web for such purposes as radicalization, violence, recruitment of new members by terrorist organizations; fundraising and the transferring of funds associated with terrorist organizations; establishment of local terrorist cells and organizations and other activities. Additionally, once a target has been identified, there is a need for immediate action such as extricating data for the purpose of positively identifying the actual person behind the virtual entity.

The Cobwebs Technologies Company has developed a web intelligence solution that fulfills this need. Their system continuously scans sources on the Internet according to a search pattern adapted to the operational need – general subjects, specific targets, and keywords. The scan addresses numerous websites, social networks, Dark Net sites and sources on the Deep Web – the vast, unfamiliar and uncharted territory of the Internet not indexed by the standard search engines. The data collected are automatically classified according to the desired subject or target, among other things – through the use of natural language processing engines.

Every person has a virtual fingerprint on the web. That fingerprint is made up of posts, locations, photographs, telephone numbers, IP addresses, usernames, E-mail messages, social connections and other elements. The system by Cobwebs Technologies collects this range of data in order to create a unique, individualized target profile. The system does not depend exclusively on social media and can identify targets even if they do not have profiles on the web by locating and classifying the other items of their fingerprints throughout the virtual space. The system will alert the user of a suspicious target profile when it has encountered such a profile.

In addition to collecting data through the use of learning algorithms, the system can also identify fictitious web profiles by analyzing their fingerprints and calculating standard deviations opposite real information. The solution by the Cobwebs Technologies Company is operational and has already been assimilated by several intelligence agencies around the world. The system operates 24/7 and helps those agencies identify suspects and criminals and spot incitement and terrorist activities on the web.