In a successful hack attack, the attacker manages to get through an organization’s password-protected firewall and arrives at a relatively unimportant computer on the inside. From there, the hacker must hop to other computers and servers on the network, from one to the next, in search of higher-level access credentials to other computers that store network security information or proprietary information worth stealing. All this hopping leaves a detectable signature—even if it amounts to a cyber needle in an enormous haystack of everyday network activity—and new Los Alamos software successfully scans for that needle.

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