There are opportunities for big data in cyber security, according to technology specialist at BSkyB Jamie Randall.
Speaking at Computing's Big Data Summit 2013 today, Randall said that big data could be used to interpret alerts and information from multiple internal and external sources.
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This information can then be used to help organisations tackle cyber security issues, he added.
"Sources like social media, logs on hard drives and within different parts of an organisation can be used together. It's a great opportunity to pull together data and make sense of it for people," he said.
"For example, big data can let you see anomalies in your network, as long as you have well trained personnel and policies to respond to these, then it can be worthwhile," he added.
Randall went on to warn enterprises that big data does also have its risks but that these are not dissimilar to the risks associated with any other data.
"Big data allows companies to bring together a lot of interesting information such as customer data. It has value to a company and if it has value to an enterprise than it has value to somebody who wants to steal it," he said.
"But it is no different to any other kind of data you have in place," he added.
Randall advised enterprises to consider four main points within an organisation to ensure they are safe.
"Knowing what the data is and where it is, who is keeping it safe and how, what the security response for the data is and most importantly, are people aware of the threat and do they need training," he said.
Randall added that an organisation should know exactly who has access to its data, including suppliers, and what measures these organisations have in place to keep secure.
He said that the password chaos that LinkedIn had been embroiled in last year should be taken as a lesson for enterprises, and that there could be a day in the near future when passwords are not used, and a two-step authentication process is used instead. In the meantime, he advised enterprises to educate their staff on the use of passwords, telling them what makes a strong password and to not use the same password for all of their social, personal and work accounts.
