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Artificial Intelligence is the discipline of thinking machines

artificial-intelligence-head The field has had its ups and downs over the years, we have seen many "AI Winters" come and go. But things are different now. The use of AI is growing dramatically with the proliferation of high powered computers into homes and businesses and especially with the growing power of smartphones and other mobile devices.
When it it time to research the great providers of Artificial Intelligence capabilities, kick off  your search in our Disruptive Technology Finder.

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Update On The Battle For Your Head: Videos capture nature of next gen consumer VR

playstation-vr-441475This post is a follow on to our report “The Battle For Your Head Is Underway: VR from Oculus, Sony, HTC/Valve competing at GDC2016”

So far we have seen nothing to change our overall conclusion. The Virtual Reality device you decide to select for your home or business use will depend on what you plan on doing with it. But your three basic choices are Oculus, Sony or HTC.  If you are a home user, hold on a while and get the Sony VR. If you are an enterprise user, go for the Oculus. Gamers will love the HTC, but hard core gamers will want all three.

Let me add also that many enterprise users will actually want to use not just Virtual Reality but Augmented Reality. There are many developments there to track.

We post four videos below to help you track some of the most insightful developments.

In professionally relevant Augmented Reality, Meta 2 provides an immersive augmented reality system with enormous potential. The device offers very high resolution views with a wide field of view and incredibly easy to operate, intuitive controls (it tracks your hands in free space). The video really needs to be seen to be believed. Do that at this link and embedded below:

Mark Zuckerberg just posted a video and an announcement saying 30 new video games will be available for the Oculus when it ships later this month. Zuckerberg calls it the best content lineup he has ever seen for the launch of a new gaming platform. For a first hand look at what is coming see the video at this link and embedded below:

Playstation VR looks great too, but it will not ship till October. Get a feel for what they are bringing by watching the video at this link and embedded below:

We are tracking the many commercial grade VR and AR devices as well. Stay tuned for more! To ensure you never miss a report sign up for our newsletters here.

 

 

The Battle For Your Head Is Underway: VR from Oculus, Sony, HTC/Valve competing at GDC2016

GDC2016 is the largest game developer conference in the globe. By all accounts it will be the biggest yet for virtual reality. It has become so huge a sub-conference has been organized called the Virtual Reality Developers Conference (VRDC).  It expands beyond games to help developers produce immersive entertainment of all kinds, from games to CG movies to filmed experiences to simulations.

Oculus Rift’s consumer version (called CV1) is already available for pre-order and its hardware specs are well known. But we expect to see more announcements around the software platform and a great deal of buzz about entertainment titles available. We do not expect to see an announcement on availability of the new Oculus designed touch controllers. For now it ships with an Xbox controller.

oculus-accessories

Note, Samsung’s GearVR is powered by Oculus software and will very likely be able to run VR software the CV1 does.  Look for more on this this week too.

samsung-gear-vr-oculus

The Sony PlayStation VR is a console-based VR headset. So high end gamers will not need to invest in another PC to use the Sony VR. This is a huge plus. Release date will probably be Q2, maybe late June.

playstationvr

The HTC/Valve Vive is available for pre-order. They are focused for now on providing SteamVR games.  If you are a hard core gamer, this may be the approach for you.

htc-vive-set.0

Overall, I believe if you are a home user the Sony VR path may be the best. Enterprise users will want to consider the Oculus path. Hard core gamers may want to leverage all these options.

A Conversation With Marc Andreessen: AI, Robotics, Jobs and Accelerating The Future

If you are an enterprise technologist or if you love thinking about the incredible future we can build for ourselves you no doubt already track the very interesting Marc Andreessen. His open sharing of views and context via his blog, on YouTube and his Twitter Feed are a great source of information for those seeking insights into the emerging tech scene and we recommend following him there for continuous context.

We had an opportunity to ask Marc for some clarifying thoughts on his views and present them in this two-part series. This first post is on AI, robotics and the future of jobs, the second dives into education, training and some concepts that may help us think through future uses of technology in our lives. A second post in this series will dive into some of the implications of future trends on education, training and our home lives.

Gourley: Marc can you provide any context that can help enterprise technologists think through the potential of disruptions to the workforce that come from advances in technology?

Andreessen: Disruptions like those of the last 300 years will certainly continue and they will continue to bring better, higher quality jobs.

Gourley: But there are those that say AI and Robotics and software that eats the world will destroy jobs.

Andreessen: There have always been those that say that and they have been proven wrong so consistently there are names for their specious thinking. In economic theory this is known as the “Lump of Labor Fallacy” which contends that the amount of work is a fixed sum. This is also at times called the “Luddite Fallacy” to draw attention to the early views of technology haters who thought that there would just be a limited amount of work and automating any of it would put the humans out of a job. Whatever you call this fallacy it has been debunked by real world observation. Technology produces jobs rather than destroying them, and it produces better, safer jobs and generates rising incomes.

Simply put, by applying technology to areas that have not had it before you get more output for the same input. This is the reason you do it, this results in industry that does more with less and generate more value by doing so. That value contributes to the overall economy. The efficiencies also builds new wealth and creates new markets for products and services and new businesses. In short, if you are concerned about job growth you should want more technology, not less.

There is plenty of evidence that underscores this, including the employment cycle we are going through right now. When unemployment was rising after 2008 the proponents of the Luddite Fallacy popped up again but innovation continued, and fortunately the results are clear. Job growth has been strong and positive. There are more new jobs in both the U.S. and globally than ever before.

Gourley: But there has been disruption, right? And all indications are that technology led change will continue to impact every industry and all levels of government.

Andreessen: If the past is any guide yes it continues and all indications are it accelerates.

Gourley: So what do we do to better prepare ourselves, especially our youth, for this change? Are there impacts on education?

Andreessen: This is a key question and one we don’t spend enough time on. To explore it I think we should first look at the premium that the world puts on education and training. The world is getting more and more connected and with that connectivity more of us can take advantage of great opportunities for advancement. But most opportunities will come to those with technical skills. The greatest pain and disruption will come to those who earn a living with unskilled labor. So clearly the positive approach to enhancing opportunities for more is through better, more ubiquitous education and skills training.

The global move is towards unskilled labor going away. This is another 300 year trend that is expected to continue and even accelerate. In farming, for example, the introduction of tractors meant less labor was required for plowing fields and many of those unskilled jobs were eliminated. Today in every industry there are unskilled jobs that will be increasingly downsized so those people who can only survive by unskilled labor will find that their hard lifestyle gets harder. Education and training can help those who currently do unskilled labor and is an absolute must for our youth.

Gourley: I have seen videos of mines, the largest mines in the world, operating with no miners, and that is a disruption, but it is hard to argue that society would want to keep sending people underground in this dangerous work. Is this what you mean?

Andreessen: Coal and other mining are on their way out for labor. The industry will become more efficient and productive by software and machine automation. Expect more skilled labor, designers, engineers, operators, analysts, but much less of the unskilled workforce. All of us should sympathize with those unskilled laborers who lose work because of this, but you are right that society should not be subjecting people to mining. It is unacceptable and years from now people will look back on us and wonder why we could ever consider not replacing those jobs as fast as we can. It is true we need to put thought into this disruption and create new things for people to do, but this will only work if we pay enough attention to education and training.

 

The second installment of this series will focus more on education, training and what to do to accelerate positive change. Get an early look by signing up for our newsletter, the CTOvision Daily.

Related Reading:

Cyber Strategy and the Dunning-Kruger Effect: Could some policymakers be too unskilled to recognize their ineptitude?

Comprehending Machine Intelligence: Research and Graphic by Shivon Zilis

Shivon Zilis is an investor at Bloomberg Beta, a very interesting early stage venture capital fund. I knew I would like Bloomberg Beta when I saw how they do their website. It is smart and reflects very well on their leadership team: They decided to leverage GitHub for their site. Doing so puts them one step closer to the creators that a VC in their space needs to know and is a great way to step out in a trust-based relationship. It is also a great way to be more transparent- they use GitHub to provide their entire operating manual for all to see.

But as an enterprise technologist I’m personally more interested in the types of firms VC’s invest in. And Bloomberg Beta is focused on themes of very high interest there. From their manual that includes:

  • Machine intelligence: Artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, including both core technologies and industry applications
  • Networks and communities: Connecting professional networks other than office workers (especially those where most of the work is in mobile contexts)
  • New organizational models: Bringing software development methodologies to other applications (e.g., version control for the real world); design as a differentiator; unbundling of corporations
  • Human-computer interaction: Hardware companies with network effects
  • Media distribution: Over-the-top television
  • Content discovery: Self-development through professional skill development
  • Technology platforms: Exploiting the increasing power of the browser, and WebRTC in particular; exploring companion businesses to open source software
  • Data: Vertical applications and analytical tools that affect business decisions

Which brings me to Shivon’s context on Machine Intelligence.  She has spent a great deal of thought and time seeking to comprehend a large and evolving marketplace and provides a succinct overview in the graphic below:

 

mi-landscape-2.0-r9_update-f2048bd678f522066e294ba8233b6615

(click on the image for the full scale view)

To me the graphic is useful for several reasons. One is that with just a quick glance you can see this is a very broad market touching many industries and functions.  It also shows that it is possible to divide and categorize this complex field into sub components and that is a relief to see. It is also a good way to learn about firms you don’t know yet and that is always a pleasure. The field is still overwhelming, but thanks to this graphic it is a bit more understandable.

More from Shivon’s site http://shivonzilis.com:

A year ago, I published my original attempt at mapping the machine intelligence ecosystem. So much has happened since. I spent the last 12 months geeking out on every company and nibble of information I can find, chatting with hundreds of academics, entrepreneurs, and investors about machine intelligence. This year, given the explosion of activity, my focus is on highlighting areas of innovation, rather than on trying to be comprehensive. Figure 1 showcases the new landscape of machine intelligence as we enter 2016:

Despite the noisy hype, which sometimes distracts, machine intelligence is already being used in several valuable ways. Machine intelligence already helps us get the important business information we need more quickly, monitors critical systems, feeds our population more efficiently, reduces the cost of health care, detects disease earlier, and so on.

The two biggest changes I’ve noted since I did this analysis last year are (1) the emergence of autonomous systems in both the physical and virtual world and (2) startups shifting away from building broad technology platforms to focusing on solving specific business problems.

To track more on this topic see:

@BloombergBeta

@Shivon

 

Other Resources:

Great Reference Graphic To Keep Your Brain Engaged On All Elements Of Big Data

Spies Want Your Money: Look at this pinhole camera used to steal credit card numbers

Strategic Big Brain Science: NIH celebrates grand opening of John Edward Porter Neuroscience Research Center

AFFIRM Panel: Kirit Amin’s Concepts Continue To Have Positive Influence In Government Business Models

Truly Useful Artificial Intelligence Tools You Can Use Today

Are you looking for useful artificial intelligence tools? We know you, dear readers, have been tracking the megatrend of artificial intelligence. There are many issues in this trend that should inform your day-to-day decision-making (we examine AI issues as part of our CAMBRIC construct to help put the trend in the context of other major thrusts in the tech world).

Most AI solutions today are fielded by the big players in IT.  For example, Apple’s Siri or the capabilities they embedded directly in iOS9, or Google’s many savvy search solutions or Amazon’s very smart recommendations.  Amazon’s Echo is also, like Siri, connecting to a very smart cloud capability that takes advantage of AI. AI capabilities are also being programmed into robotic solutions including self driving cars. IBM is also investing heavily in AI, with Watson the most famous result.

We expect to see a new wave of AI solutions that deliver value from smaller start-up companies as well. This is a very crowded space, with plenty of VC funding for entrepreneurs with capabilities in a wide-range of AI disciplines. Most of these firms seem to be on one of two paths: Success, which will mean being acquired by Facebook, Apple, Microsoft or IBM, or failure, which will see them acquired by the same firms for a lower price for their talent. Either way the innovation continues.

We are also on the lookout for hot firms that are not providing capabilities as part of other offerings or don’t seem to be on a path to be acquired by one of the big guys. This part of the market is very likely going to take off, since open source platforms and open cloud API’s and services like Prediction.io are making it so easy for others to create and field AI.

Here is a short list of capabilities we recommend all enterprise technologists track. The list is by no means comprehensive, but is definitely representative of what is available now:

Artificial Intelligence On Your Phone:

  • Siri: Part of Apple’s iOS, watchOS and tvOS. Intelligent personal assistant.
  • Cortana: Microsoft’s intelligent personal assistant. Designed for Windows mobile but now on Android and a limited version runs on Apple iOS. Also works on desktops and Xbox One.
  • Google Now: Available within Google Search mobile app for Android and iOS as well as the Google Chrome web browser on other devices. Delegates requests to web services powered by Google.

Artificial Intelligence From The Cloud:

Really most all of the AI on your phone and desktops is communicating with cloud services, so keep in mind most solutions are a blend that highly leverage cloud capabilities. But we needed a place to talk about Echo and Watson and soon many others, so:

  • Watson: A technology platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of data.
  • Echo: The device you buy is mostly a speaker and microphone with some commodity IT to connect it to the cloud. The real smarts come from Amazon Web Services.

For Personal and Business Use:

  • x.ai: Let AI coordinate schedules for you. Your own personal scheduler.
  • CrystalKnows: Using AI to help you know the best way to communicate with others.
  • RecordedFuture: Leverages natural language processing at massive scale in real time to collect and understand over 700,000 web sources to seek understanding.
  • Tamr: Unique approaches to Big Data leveraging machine learning.
  • LegalRobot: Automating legal document review in ways that can serve people and businesses.
  • Intraspexion: Uses Deep Learning as the core of an early warning system to investigate and prevent potential litigation.
  • EverLaw: The power of mobile, machine learning and cloud computing delivered as a SaaS.

Artificial Intelligence For Developers:

  • Vicarious: Building the next generation of AI algorithms.
  • Soar is a general cognitive architecture for developing systems that exhibit intelligent behavior.
  • Prediction.io is a service with easy to use, open templates for a variety of advanced AI workloads.
  • Jade: Java Agent Development Framework. Simplifies multi-agent system development.
  • Protege: A free, open-source ontology editor and framework for building intelligent systems.
  • h2o.ai: Build smarter machine learning/AI applications that are fast and scalable.
  • Seldon: An open, enterprise-grade machine learning platform that adds intelligence to organizations.
  • SigOpt: Run experiments and make better products with less trial and error.
  • Scaled Inference: Cloud based models and an inference engine to help in model selection.
  • OpenCV: Open source computer vision, a library of programming functions aimed mainly at computer vision.

Artificial Intelligence For Healthcare:

  • Enlitic: Deep learning for healthcare and data driven medicine.
  • Metamind.io: Automatic image recognition with many use cases, including medicine.
  • Zebra Medical Vision: Closing the gaps between research and result for patients with data and AI.
  • Deep Genomics: Machine learning and AI transforming precision medicine, genetic testing, diagnostics and therapies.
  • Atomwise: Using AI and analytics to predict medicines and discover drugs.
  • Flatiron.com: AI and Machine Learning delivering insights on treatments.

Artificial Intelligence For Robotics:

  • Mttr.net: Building flying vehicles powered by intelligent software.
  • Skycatch: Software for fully autonomous aerial systems.
  • IdentifiedTech: Industrial mapping drone automation.

Artificial Intelligence For Space:

  • SpaceKnow: Using AI to track global economic trends from Space.
  • OrbitalInsight: Space trends for understanding global issues.

Artificial Intelligence For Marketing and Customer Interaction:

  • DigitalGenius: Computer driven conversation with customers in ways that scale and serve.
  • Conversica: AI to help you find your next customer, including automated email conversations to qualify leads.

We know this is not a complete list. Please let us know who you think we should include. Contact us here.

For more see:

What should I know about blockchain?

What artificial intelligence tools are really useful

How can I have a career in data science?

How can I select a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)?

How can I stop ransomware?

How can our military use advanced technology smartly?

How can we improve cybersecurity?

Track the most disruptive technologies by diving into our categorized index:

Artificial Intelligence Companies – A fast overview of Artificial Intelligence companies we believe are poised to cause the most positive disruption in the enterprise.

Big Data Companies – Reference to the greatest, most disruptive Big Data companies in the tech ecosystem.

Business Intelligence Companies – We assess these to be the Business Intelligence Companies most impactful for delivering real decision advantage.

Cybersecurity Companies – We apply our deep expertise in cybersecurity to assessing the best across multiple categories including:

Cloud Computing Companies – We include both platform and software as a service providers, capturing only the most innovative and disruptive.

Collaborative Tool Companies – These are the firms that help humans connect to humans to create, manage and lead.

Infrastructure Companies – Critical enterprise foundations for business agility.

IoT Companies – Internet of Things and Industrial Internet of Things are here. How do you manage them?

Mobile Companies – Help manage, configure, secure and optimize these very powerful capabilities.

Robotics Companies – Including innovations in Robotic Process Automation, Drones, and industrial robotics.

Services Companies – We only track a few, the ones we really know well.

Tech Titans – These are the big players. We track the tech titans closely since their capabilities change continuously.

VC, PE and Finance Companies – Keeping an eye on the investors can give indications of coming developments.

You can also use our topical pages to get up to speed quickly on the current status of the major megatrends. See our pages on Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Mobility, Big Data, Robotics, Internet of Things, Cybersecurity and Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies.

We also provide special pages focused on high interest topics, including Science Fiction, Entertainment, Cyber War, Tech Careers, Training and Education and Tech Tips.

The IBM Press Release on Spark That Every Tech Leader Should Read

IBM just announced a major new push around Apache Spark. You know Spark, the free and open source complement to Apache Hadoop that gives enterprises better ability to field fast, unified applications that combine multiple workloads, including streaming over all your data. For years it has seemed like IBM was giving lip-service to Spark while emphasizing capabilities that they placed big bets on over the years (especially IBM’s flagship stream processing product, InfoSphere Streams).

I have seen solutions based around InfoSphere Streams that are clearly the right approach for high performance solutions where reliability is critical for mission support. Spark is still new and frankly there have been issues with performance from time to time. But Spark is also open source where large teams of developers are contributing to continuously improve the capability. Spark today is production ready for many workloads.

But I never would have imagined IBM would so strongly endorse Spark like they did today. I was really surprised. Their endorsement is so strong I believe it is time for all InfoSphere Streams users start considering the future of their designs.

The endorsement came in the form of a $300 million investment and the assignment of 3,500 people to help develop Spark. They also launched a plan to train over a million data scientists and data engineers on Spark. IBM called spark “the most significant open source project of the next decade.”

Full press release follows:

IBM Announces Major Commitment to Advance Apache®Spark™, Calling it Potentially the Most Significant Open Source Project of the Next Decade

BM Joins Spark Community, Plans to Educate More Than 1 Million Data Scientists

ARMONK, NY – 15 Jun 2015: IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced a major commitment to Apache®Spark™, potentially the most important new open source project in a decade that is being defined by data. At the core of this commitment, IBM plans to embed Spark into its industry-leading Analytics and Commerce platforms, and to offer Spark as a service on IBM Cloud. IBM will also put more than 3,500 IBM researchers and developers to work on Spark-related projects at more than a dozen labs worldwide; donate its breakthrough IBM SystemML machine learning technology to the Spark open source ecosystem; and educate more than one million data scientists and data engineers on Spark.

As data and analytics are embedded into the fabric of business and society –from popular apps to the Internet of Things (IoT) –Spark brings essential advances to large-scale data processing. First, it dramatically improves the performance of data dependent apps. Second, it radically simplifies the process of developing intelligent apps, which are fueled by data.

To further accelerate open source innovation for the Spark ecosystem, IBM is taking the following actions:

  • IBM will build Spark into the core of the company’s analytics and commerce platforms.
  • IBM’s Watson Health Cloud will leverage Spark as a key underpinning for its insight platform, helping to deliver faster time to value for medical providers and researchers as they access new analytics around population health data.
  • IBM will open source its breakthrough IBM SystemML machine learning technology and collaborate with Databricks to advance Spark’s machine learning capabilities.
  • IBM will offer Spark as a Cloud service on IBM Bluemix to make it possible for app developers to quickly load data, model it, and derive the predictive artifact to use in their app.
  • IBM will commit more than 3,500 researchers and developers to work on Spark-related projects at more than a dozen labs worldwide, and open a Spark Technology Center in San Francisco for the Data Science and Developer community to foster design-led innovation in intelligent applications.
  • IBM will educate more than 1 million data scientists and data engineers on Spark through extensive partnerships with AMPLab, DataCamp, MetiStream, Galvanize and Big Data University MOOC.

“IBM has been a decades long leader in open source innovation. We believe strongly in the power of open source as the basis to build value for clients, and are fully committed to Spark as a foundational technology platform for accelerating innovation and driving analytics across every business in a fundamental way,” said Beth Smith, General Manager, Analytics Platform, IBM Analytics. “Our clients will benefit as we help them embrace Spark to advance their own data strategies to drive business transformation and competitive differentiation.”

Spark Drives Business Transformation for IBM Clients

Spark has grown quickly in popularity among developers and data scientists as an essential platform for helping organizations more easily integrate Big Data into applications, and is quickly gaining momentum with IBM clients looking to transform business decision-making:

  • Real-time transportation planning software from Optibus is changing the way public transport is organized. “Spark, together with IBM, provides a highly scalable platform for Optibus, making it easy for us to expand our software as a service offering into new markets, and helps us simplify deployment, maintenance and application development for transportation companies worldwide,” said Amos Haggiag, Optibus CTO and Co-Founder.
  • Findability Sciences, a global consulting and contextual data technology solutions company, is using IBM Analytics and Spark to help clients tap into the power of Big Data. “Apache Spark with IBM BigInsights has given us tremendous capacity for our implementations for small and medium businesses, where MapReduce was not efficient. With Spark, the performance has improved multi fold. We’re now able to process streaming data from IoT devices and offer analytics for data in motion for things like traffic, commuters and parking,”said Anand Mahurkar, CEO of Findability Sciences.
  • Independence Blue Cross (IBC) is the largest health insurer in the Philadelphia area, serving more than two million people in the region and seven million nationwide. It’s using Spark to help drive product innovation and develop new services. “Apache Spark is quickly maturing into a power tool for development of machine-learning analytic applications. It allows our IBC researchers and academic partners to work together more seamlessly, which means we can get new claims and benefits apps up and out to customers much faster,” said Darwin Leung, Director of Informatics at Independence Blue Cross.
  • IBM, NASA, and the SETI Institute are collaborating to analyze terabytes of complex deep space radio signals using Spark’s machine learning capabilities in a hunt for patterns that might betray the presence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. “With Spark as a Service on Bluemix, we’ll be able to work with IBM to develop promising new ways to analyze signal data as we hunt for evidence of intelligence elsewhere in the cosmos. This is an exciting example of synergy in the service of science,”said Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer and Director of the Center for SETI Research.

IBM is one of four founding members of the UC Berkeley AMPLab, where Spark was first invented in 2009, and as a result participates in multi-day research retreats, provides advice and real-world insight, and interacts closely with AMPLab researchers on projects of mutual interest. “As a sponsor of the AMPLab, IBM contributes to the greater Spark community and provides guidance for the continued evolution and improvement of the Berkeley Data Analytics Stack, the open source platform of which Spark is a key component,” said Professor Michael Franklin, Director of the UC Berkeley AMPLab.

Spark is agile, fast and easy to use. And because it is open source, it is improved continuously by a worldwide community. Over the course of the next few months, IBM scientists and engineers will work with the Apache Spark open community to rapidly accelerate access to advanced machine learning capabilities and help drive speed-to-innovation in the development of smart business apps. By contributing SystemML, IBM will help data scientists iterate faster to address the changing needs of business and to enable a growing ecosystem of app developers to apply deep intelligence into every thing.

We track IBM as a Tech Titan in the CTOvision Solutions Directory

Examining New Mission-Focused Capabilities Coming From The Cloudera And Intel Engineering Partnership

The video at this link and embedded below captures the content and dialog of a webinar which examined new capabilities of Cloudera and Intel, with a focus on capabilities that provide a full stack solution to many key enterprise mission needs. The webinar included insights by Cloudera’s Senior Director of Technology Webster Mudge and Intel’s Enterprise Technology Specialist Ed Herold, plus questions from an informed audience. Results of the recent CTOlabs.com white paper on this topic were also presented.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KgxCb2X_Bo

This information can inform your design trades and is relevant to enterprise architects, engineers and line of business leaders.

We would love to get you feedback on the webinar video and/or white paper. Please contact us with your thoughts.

We track Cloudera in our list of Big Data disrupters.

We track Intel as a Tech Titan

What I Took Away From The Operation Cleaver (#OpCleaver) report

If you track cyber security you have no doubt heard of the recently published report by Cylance titled Operation Cleaver. It has been extensively referenced in the press and has generated significant dialog among practitioners, pundits and policy wonks including on Twitter with the hashtag #OpCleaver. The report was so good and so well documented it resulted in the FBI taking the action of publishing special alerts warning infrastructure providers of possible Iranian cyber attacks. This was a very important report.

Here is a gist of the report from Cylance:

  • A new global cyber power has emerged; one that has already compromised some of the world’s most critical infrastructure. The Operation Cleaver report sheds light on the efforts of a coordinated and determined group working to undermine the security of at least 50 companies across 15 industries in 16 countries. Our report unveils the tactics, techniques and procedures used in what is still an ongoing campaign.
  • Operation Cleaver has, over the past several years, conducted a significant global surveillance and infiltration campaign. To date it has successfully evaded detection by existing security technologies. The group successfully leveraged both publicly available and customized tools to attack and compromise targets around the globe, including military, oil and gas, energy and utilities, transportation, hospitals, telecommunications, technology, education, aerospace, defense contractors, chemical, companies, and governments.
  • Since at least 2012, Iranian actors have directly attacked, established persistence in, and extracted highly sensitive materials from the networks of government agencies and major critical infrastructure companies in the following countries: Canada, China, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Kuwait, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

The report provides a sound-bite sized statement that “Iran is the new China.”  That is designed to make us think and I’m glad they wrote that. But as an intelligence professional I would like to add that the motivations of these actors appear to be different. China seems primarily motivated by espionage, with the strategic military potential of cyber attacks a secondary but also important consideration. These Iranian attacks appear to be more sinister, motivated by a desire to have a strategic weapon at their disposal. The importance of this nuance may only be relevant to policy makers seeking to deter these actors from their objectives. That too is something to put some thought into, since both are totally different collectives of totally different actors.

The report makes the point that in many ways attribution offers little real benefit to the day-to-day cyber defender. Cylance writes that this level of attribution can aid law enforcement. We agree with the latter point, of course, this can be of use to law enforcement. But would like that there is another school of thought regarding intelligence informing cyber defense. We believe this report can serve enterprises as yet another strategic intelligence input, which can be useful in helping organizations plan their defenses.

Overall, our assessment is that although the report is short, it is to the point, and very insightful. Our recommendations:

  • We most strongly recommend you read it in its entirety.  It will give you a much better feel for the quality of work by the team at Cylance and help you understand the nature of this threat better.
  • Please consider sharing the Cylance report. Cylance has documented a very important evolution of the cyber threat, one we believe all citizens, not just defenders, need to better understand. I believe we are all doing civilization a favor when we spread the word on good works like this, and hope you will consider sharing the Cylance Operation Cleaver report widely.

Download the report here: Operation Cleaver

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