Information overload: lessons from the Christmas Day terror attack

by John Poulter, ComputerWeekly.com

The foiled Christmas Day attempt to blow up a plane over Detroit has once again sparked debate about international security and how data relating to passengers is tracked and managed.

Frustratingly, whilst Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged bomber, appeared on several terrorist databases and ‘watch lists’ his status was not elevated to a category that would have prevented him boarding the flight. The US terrorist watch list alone includes the names of more than one million people. Monitoring air bound passengers may seem like a daunting task for many, however, this issue of managing growing amounts of information is not exclusive to governments, but is a problem for industries worldwide.

In today’s digital world every individual has a trail of information that they leave in their wake, whether it be from using credit cards, computers or making a phone call. The volume of this kind of data is increasing exponentially, along with the locations the data is found in. The challenge for security organisations worldwide is to identify which information is important and then from there sharing the data across agencies. …..

In the case of the recent attempt, another technique known as complex event processing could have flagged two seemingly independent events – that the ticket was paid for in cash, and the suspected terrorist did not have any checked bags – and generated an immediate alert for additional screening given that he was on a watch list. Essentially, complex event processing compares multiple events with the goal of identifying the meaningful ones. Having this kind of technology in place would enable responses to possible threats as they occur by giving the right people access to the right information when they most need it.  Article