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"Today's sophisticated solutions examine activity Gazit said. "Despite all the progress in the scientific
throughout an entire network to identify suspicious community, many security analysts still work semi-
activities instead of relying on a single set of behavioral manually."
attributes," he said.
Using the analogy of ancient cartography versus the
Modeling the way global positioning system (GPS) to compare old and new

Professor Ronald Coifman, Yale University faculty member security methods, Coifman said the GPS uses precise
and renowned mathematician, received the National coordinates to portray reality, while traditional maps that
Medal of Science from President Clinton and is co-founder quantitatively measure distances on paper do not account
of ThetaRay, a data analytics and cyber-security company. for the physical relief of sea, islands and mountains.
"Human beings created machines in their own image, Deep integration
with eyes and arms," he said. "Artificial intelligence, used
by leading financial institutions, identifies unexpected Organizations learn in much the same way humans and
things by mimicking nature." machines do, said Mark Cerminaro, Chief Revenue Officer
at RapidAdvance, an online financial services company.
Mark Gazit, ThetaRay Chief Executive Officer, added, He said initial steps typically involve assessing and
"Artificial intelligence can be a misleading term, because organizing data to improve efficiencies.
computers do exactly what humans do. In the early days,
without much data or computing power, organizations "Ideally, the objective is to structure the environment
used small algorithms to identify ever-present threats." at a macro level to see what is operating efficiently, and
where we need to dig in more to create continuity," he
Recalling early development efforts, Coifman said, "You said. "Knowledge is empowering for an organization. We
build a human model with uniform information about encourage our team to assess operations, interpret trends
arms, legs and weight. But the best model of human and share their opinions about what the data is telling
beings might make a basketball player look like an alien, them."
or a small animal look like a human baby."
Cerminaro observed that financial institutions are step-
The engineers decided to forego measurements and focus ping outside of their comfort zones and entering the world
on proportions. This way, a basketball player would still of technology. Their collaborations with fintechs are help-
register as a human baby, and a tiger would look like a ing them leverage the traditional banking infrastructure
cat. In a similar way, advanced fraud detection schemes and improve risk management practices.
are taught to differentiate between normal and unusual
activity, without relying on static information or rules The world has evolved; every partner has different
engines. infrastructure, resources and markets, Cerminaro
said. When you look at the processing world, ISOs and
Deep learning independent software vendors are adding alternative
Machines and humans run algorithms to connect events lending solutions to their suite of solutions. We want to
with observations, but machines are faster and more build true relationships with ISOs, so we brought in Jim
efficient at processing situational awareness. "All the Fink, who understands that business, he added.
algorithms we have running are built of empirical linkages,
based on experience, that provide useful information," Jim Fink, Director of Strategic Partnerships at
Coifman said. "As we acquire data, our situational and RapidAdvance, concurred, stating, "In the history of
quantitative awareness becomes more and more precise." our space, it's always been clicks. Today's processors
are getting away from that model, which has become a
He said that it's not computing in the usual sense; it's about race to the bottom. They understand this is no longer a
sensing by making connections. Every living organism transactional business and see the value of being a full-
has its own collection of sensors and linkages, and learns service provider to their clients."
by making connections and measuring the strength of Agile development, implementation
those connections to reach more precise conclusions.
The software realm is adapting to emerging technologies
Advanced threat detection begins with a blank canvas and faster development cycles. For years, a software
and builds observational models to differentiate between development kit (SDK) was simply a set of tools backed by
normal and suspicious behavior. These models don't email support. Today's developers expect real-time support
operate on the same time scale as humans; they compute services and robust application programming interface
with dizzying speed and change all the time. libraries that support seamless integration. "Twenty years
ago, Steve Jobs said the computer needs to evolve from
"By connecting all the dots all the time across multiple an object to an appliance," said Mike Gardner, CEO at
dimensions, artificial intelligence can process more Agreement Express, a software-as-a-service company.
information than human beings can capture in real time,"
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