Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales

Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales
Establishment2011
SponsorDARPA
Value$35 million
GoalDetect insider threats in defense and government networks
Websitewww.darpa.mil

Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales, or ADAMS was a $35 million DARPA project designed to identify patterns and anomalies in very large data sets. It is under DARPA's Information Innovation office and began in 2011[1][2][3][4] and ended in August 2014[5]

The project was intended to detect and prevent insider threats such as "a soldier in good mental health becoming homicidal or suicidal", an "innocent insider becoming malicious", or "a government employee [who] abuses access privileges to share classified information".[2][6] Specific cases mentioned are Nadal Malik Hasan and WikiLeaks source Chelsea Manning.[7] Commercial applications may include finance.[7] The intended recipients of the system output are operators in the counterintelligence agencies.[2][6]

A final report was published on May 11, 2015, detailing a system known as Anomaly Detection Engine for Networks, or ADEN, developed by the University of Maryland, College Park, whose goal was to "identify malicious users within a network." Using multiple datasets from Wikipedia, Slashdot, and others, researchers were able to identify vandals and malicious users on a website using both conventional algorithms and artificial intelligence.[8]

The Proactive Discovery of Insider Threats Using Graph Analysis and Learning was part of the ADAMS project.[6][9] The Georgia Tech team includes noted high-performance computing researcher David Bader (computer scientist).[10]

  1. ^ "ADAMS". DARPA Information Innovation Office. Archived from the original on 2012-01-21. Retrieved 2011-12-05.
  2. ^ a b c "Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales (ADAMS) Broad Agency Announcement DARPA-BAA-11-04" (PDF). General Services Administration. 2010-10-22. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-06. Retrieved 2011-12-05.
  3. ^ Ackerman, Spencer (2010-10-11). "Darpa Starts Sleuthing Out Disloyal Troops". Wired. Retrieved 2011-12-06.
  4. ^ Keyes, Charley (2010-10-27). "Military wants to scan communications to find internal threats". CNN. Retrieved 2011-12-06.
  5. ^ "DARPA ADAMS Project".
  6. ^ a b c "Georgia Tech Helps to Develop System That Will Detect Insider Threats from Massive Data Sets". Georgia Institute of Technology. 2011-11-10. Retrieved 2011-12-06.
  7. ^ a b "Video Interview: DARPA's ADAMS Project Taps Big Data to Find the Breaking Bad". Inside HPC. 2011-11-29. Retrieved 2011-12-06.
  8. ^ Subrahmanian, V. S. (11 May 2015). "Final Report for the DARPA ADAMS Project" (PDF). Retrieved 4 August 2024.
  9. ^ Brandon, John (2011-12-03). "Could the U.S. Government Start Reading Your Emails?". Fox News. Archived from the original on December 3, 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-06.
  10. ^ "Anomaly Detection at Multiple Scales". Georgia Tech College of Computing. Retrieved 2011-12-06.