{"675969":{"#nid":"675969","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Chatbot Can Spot Cyberattacks Before They Start","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFrom data breaches to widespread systemic shutdowns, cyberattacks like the \u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fulton-county-cyberattack-ransom-e05035da4ceea50e7683d6fc4df2c473\u0022\u003E2024 Fulton County (Georgia) government attack\u003C\/a\u003E now occur as regularly as natural disasters \u2014 and cause just as much destruction. And, like severe weather, they can be predicted thanks to a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that analyzes social media to determine who could cause the next big cyberattack.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers in Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scheller.gatech.edu\/index.html\u0022\u003EScheller College of Business\u003C\/a\u003E, together with colleagues at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. (UDC), \u0026nbsp;developed a chatbot that analyzed sentiment on popular social media sites like X (formerly known as Twitter) to determine cyberthreats. The chatbot tweeted information to engage Twitter users who either tweeted about news events or holidays, or retweeted cyberattack news. It interacted with 100,000 users over a three-month period. Sentiment analysis \u2014 gauging users\u2019 feelings, attitudes, and moods\u2014 was performed on human responses to the bot\u2019s tweets.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EApplying sentiment analysis to human-chatbot interactions is not new. Globally, companies use chatbots to determine customers\u2019 reactions to brands and products.\u0026nbsp; During the Covid-19 pandemic, governments and health organizations employed chatbots to determine public attitudes toward vaccinations, preventive measures, and mask wearing. However, identifying potential cyberthreats via sentiment analysis represents a unique \u2014 and complicated \u2014 application.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen you examine sentiment analysis on a chatbot through a cybersecurity lens, you are looking for potential hackers,\u201d said Scheller Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scheller.gatech.edu\/directory\/faculty\/mcintyre\/index.html\u0022\u003EJohn McIntyre\u003C\/a\u003E, who is also the executive director of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scheller.gatech.edu\/centers-and-initiatives\/center-for-international-business-edu-and-research\/index.html\u0022\u003ECenter for International Business Education and Research\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp; \u201cCatching hackers using sentiment analysis is challenging, but\u0026nbsp; predictive models can be built to find them.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAI can target a particular population to understand its expressions of approval, disapproval, or even intent to harm, attack, or misuse the technology.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA team led by McIntyre and UDC Associate Professors Amit Arora and Anshu Arora conducted the research. They set out to see if cybersecurity threats could be discovered through social media, but the study is just the beginning of a potentially fertile cyberthreat prevention method. McIntyre believes the study could expand to analyzing sentiment in other languages and even on other platforms.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs we move toward a world in which we\u0027ll rely more and more on communication technologies and social media, there will be an increasing number of threats,\u201d he said. \u201cWe must know how to counter such threats.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EFunded by the Department of Defense\u2019s Applied Research\u0026nbsp;Lab for Intelligence and Security\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EArora A, Arora A, McIntyre J. Developing Chatbots for Cyber Security: Assessing Threats through Sentiment Analysis on Social Media.\u0026nbsp;Sustainability. 2023; 15(17):13178. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/su151713178\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers in Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scheller.gatech.edu\/index.html\u0022\u003EScheller College of Business\u003C\/a\u003E, together with colleagues at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. (UDC), \u0026nbsp;developed a chatbot that analyzed sentiment on popular social media sites like X (formerly known as Twitter) to determine cyberthreats. The chatbot tweeted information to engage Twitter users who either tweeted about news events or holidays, or retweeted cyberattack news. It interacted with 100,000 users over a three-month period. Sentiment analysis \u2014 gauging users\u2019 feelings, attitudes, and moods\u2014 was performed on human responses to the bot\u2019s tweets.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Scheller College of Business researchers develop an  AI that analyzes social media sentiment "}],"uid":"34541","created_gmt":"2024-08-13 19:36:31","changed_gmt":"2024-08-13 20:23:52","author":"Tess Malone","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2024-08-13T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2024-08-13T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"674565":{"id":"674565","type":"image","title":"John McIntyre-1-5 copy.jpg","body":null,"created":"1723578121","gmt_created":"2024-08-13 19:42:01","changed":"1723578121","gmt_changed":"2024-08-13 19:42:01","alt":"John McIntyre","file":{"fid":"258109","name":"John McIntyre-1-5 copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/08\/13\/John%20McIntyre-1-5%20copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/08\/13\/John%20McIntyre-1-5%20copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":37161,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2024\/08\/13\/John%20McIntyre-1-5%20copy.jpg?itok=y8PhVsI7"}}},"media_ids":["674565"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"},{"id":"1274","name":"Scheller College of Business"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Senior Research Writer\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003Etess.malone@gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}