Brian Kenneth Swain

Links to various blogs I wrote during my tenure with SparkCognition’s Marketing ...

Product Brochure I created for the Oil & Gas Practice in support of client business development, trade shows, and other marketing programs. This asset, along with companion midstream and upstream brochures, were very successful in promoting SparkCognition’s AI-powered Predictive Maintenance solutions. ...

Normal behavior modeling (NBM) is an approach to process, system, and equipment management and maintenance that has been enabled by recent advances in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). This white paper describes the evolutionary forces that have led to this new capability set, its applications (current and prospective), its benefits, and details of how the technology works. In addition to the explanation of NBM’s operation and implementation, several examples are provided that highlight the benefits of this technology.   Introduction The primary goal of this white paper is to provide an in-depth introduction to the topic of NBM so that corporate decision-makers will understand its capabilities, ...

EBook created in support of SparkCognition’s sustainable energy AI programs. This was a very large undertaking that required interviews with at least a dozen SMEs in the firm, followed by several weeks of drafting, researching, and updating prior to release of the final piece for use at trade shows, conferences, etc. These are  the first few pages of what ended up as a 20-page ...

Product brochure that I created for SparkCognition Government Systems highlighting the application of AI/ML-based Normal Behavior Modeling and Predictive Maintenance in the defense ...

The Threat Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) mobile attacks can be accomplished in a wide range of technical ways, but the high level effect is the same in every scenario. An individual manages to insert himself between a call originator and recipient, and manages, as well, to fool each party into believing they are communicating directly with the other desired party, when, in fact, they are each communicating with the attacker. Having thus convinced each party that they are taking part in a legitimate and secure conversation, the attacker then has access to both parties’ IMSI numbers, physical locations, and all of the contents of their conversation, which can, in turn, be eavesdropped on or recorded for other nefarious purposes. How Does It ...

The Threat There exist many types of malware targeting mobile devices. And with the proliferation of mobile phones over the past decade, malware developers have dramatically ramped up their efforts to create and distribute malicious software to the cell phone community. Unsurprisingly perhaps, financial attacks are the single largest category of malware. According to a recent article by Ori Bach at SecurityIntelligence.com, about 30% of all extant malware is built for the purpose of stealing financial information. Other popular categories include stealing personal information, keystroke logging, deploying cryptographic ransomware, or opening the phone up to remote control of cameras, microphones, or call eavesdropping.   How’s It ...

The Threat The CCS7 network was developed in the mid seventies to control the routing of phone calls using out-of-band signaling. The data packets transmitted on the network control not only the initiation and completion of calls, but also numerous billing functions and the activation of advanced features that are today taken for granted (call forwarding, call waiting, etc.). Because the data packets transmitted via CCS7 are unencrypted, it has become relatively easy to gain access to this network and to use it to perform numerous nefarious activities, most notable of which are locating a cell phone with an accuracy of a few meters and intercepting and eavesdropping on calls. The weaknesses of the CCS7 network came to the fore in mid 2014 ...

The Threat The baseband processor in a mobile phone is the system that communicates via radio waves with the cell tower in order to complete cellular calls. Because your mobile phone communicates via cell towers, in order to intercept the radio signal from a cell phone, the hacker must first set up a fake cell tower and convince a nearby phone (the target) to connect to it. The hacker can then download malicious code that will attack vulnerabilities in the GSM/3GPP stacks of the phone’s baseband processor, typically Qualcomm or Infineon chip sets. While this attack type is limited to those individuals or entities with the resources and technical know-how to set up their own bogus cell towers, the cost of setting one up has fallen ...