To provide protection from targeted cyber attacks through automatic identification of exposure to hostile reconnaissance

The Cabinet Office recently estimated the total cost to the UK economy of successful cyber
attacks at £27bn per year. This growing cost is attributed to lost intellectual property,
extortion, espionage, customer data and identity theft.
A recent trend of highly targeted, persistent attacks, rely upon ‘hostile reconnaissance’.
During these attacks the adversary obtains all publically available information through the
Internet about their target – its ‘digital shadow’. This information often unintentionally
includes details of key employees, software versions and security settings. Using this, the
adversary is able to then tailor their attack for maximum effect.
As the use of social media and the boundaries between work and the Internet become less
defined, organisations are casting ever-growing digital shadows. Whilst there are benefits to
our engagement with the Internet it is not benign.
This proof of concept will research and confirm the technical feasibility of creating a scalable
platform that automatically discovers vulnerabilities in an organisation’s digital shadow. A
basic proof of concept system will be created to prove that investing in developing a full
platform is technically viable. The test platform will seek to collect, collate and analyse data
from social networks, social media sources, and the tools used by the hackers themselves.
Should this research project be successful, the eventual goal is to create a full production
system that will provide an automated service to both small and large organisations that
continuously monitors their digital shadows for exposed information useful to a hacker. Once
industrialised, this could help a great number of organisations reduce their exposure to cyber
attack. This has many benefits including protecting the UK’s intellectual property, jobs,
national security and critical national infrastructure.