Cybersecurity, Data Science and Machine Learning: Is All Data Equal?

In big-data discussions, the value of data sometimes refers to the predictive capability of a given data model and other times to the discovery of hidden insights that appear when rigorous analytical methods are applied to the data itself. From a cybersecurity point of view, I believe the value of data refers first to the "nature" of the data itself. Positive data, i.e. malicious network traffic data from malware and cyberattacks, have much more value than some other data science problems. To better understand this, let's start to discuss how a wealth of network traffic data can be used to build network security models through the use of machine learning techniques. Machine learning, together with data science and big data, is gaining a lot of popularity due to its widespread use in many tech companies around the world.