Marina Negrete
Marina Negrete
Helios Scholar

School: South Mountain Community College
Hometown: Phoenix, Arizona
Mentor: John Forrister
PI: John Forrister

Abstract
Data analysis helps information security department identify devices and errors in TGen’s computer network

Helios Scholar

Information security is essential for protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of TGen data. Without information security, data could be stolen, corrupted, or otherwise become unavailable. This could have serious consequences for TGen, such as reputational damage, inaccurate research results, or disruptions to research. In this project, log data was analyzed to identify devices logging to the computer network as a generic hostname and to identify errors. By issuing searches in Splunk, a user-friendly software that allows users to search through computer logs, log data was analyzed, and results were documented and summarized. As a result, some devices were found to have misconfigured hostnames and some errors were found that could potentially impede functionality within the network. In conclusion, the average 1.26 billion computer logs per day were narrowed down to a small number of devices that need their hostnames reconfigured and <redacted> errors that should be further investigated.

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