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FROST & SULLIVAN BEST PRACTICES AWARD
Technology Innovation 2019AI-POWERED WEB INTELLIGENCE - GLOBAL
BEST PRACTICES RESEARCH
© Frost & Sullivan 2019 2 “We Accelerate Growth”
Contents
Background and Company Performance ...................................................................... 3
Industry Challenges............................................................................................ 3
Technology Attributes and Future Business Value of Cobwebs Technologies ................ 3
Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 6
Significance of Technology Innovation ......................................................................... 7
Understanding Technology Innovation ......................................................................... 7
Key Benchmarking Criteria .................................................................................. 8
Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices ................................................................................................................. 8
The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards .................... 10
Research Methodology ...................................................................................... 10
About Frost & Sullivan ............................................................................................ 10
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Background and Company Performance
Industry Challenges
The world’s rising cyber-crime rates are facilitated through Internet ubiquity, the massive
volumes of data available online via the Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled devices, and
criminals’ advanced techniques to conceal illegal activities such as terrorism recruiting and
planning, drug and human trafficking, and classified government document sharing via the
deep web and dark web. The deep web consists of "undiscoverable" information on the
Internet that individuals cannot access via standard methods—e.g., a Google search—as
such data is hosted on password-protected websites or encrypted networks. Malicious
individuals created the dark web to enable people to maintain anonymity while conducting
illicit activities—e.g., child abductions—in the physical world or upload or access illegal or
sensitive content—e.g., media or confidential information—in the digital realm in a more
closed and private environment than the deep web. The dark web consists of darknets
that contain digitally isolated data often hosted in remote physical locations due to more
lenient laws in less technologically-regulated countries, allowing users to avoid litigation
and potential physical extradition and arrest.
The primary challenge organizations face when it comes to protecting and safeguarding
against dark or deep web-initiated crimes is security teams must search, gather, and
analyze web data manually through siloed systems and various sources—e.g., the open,
deep, and dark webs, platforms, and applications—and then piece that information
together to create a complete picture of an event. Such manual processes often leave
information undiscovered that could be vital to investigations; thus, security teams need
automated and unified analytics solutions equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) and
machine learning (ML) capabilities to increase productivity and safety, accurately identify
incidents or planned attacks, and decrease operational expenditures.
Historically, early analytics solutions proved to be less useful than anticipated, leading to
unreliable alerting, multiple false alarms, or failure to report suspicious incidents at all;
thus, many businesses viewed analytics as costly add-ons that provided minimal or no
return on investment. However, advancements in analytics algorithms, IoT-connectivity
proliferation, and progress in ML and AI algorithms have improved these solutions’
accuracy significantly to pinpoint suspicious events and send out immediate alerts.
Technology Attributes and Future Business Value of Cobwebs Technologies
Founded in 2015 and operating from New York and Singapore, Cobwebs Technologies
(Cobwebs) leverages ML and AI-powered analytics to develop industry-leading web
intelligence solutions. The company’s technology enables clients to search single leads and
develop case investigations with information gathered from multiple sources, increasing
security teams’ productivity. Cobwebs serves clients globally in various industries such as
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law enforcement, intelligence agencies, border control, public safety, critical
infrastructure, and banking and finance.
Game-changing AI-powered Web Intelligence Technology
Cobwebs integrates its solutions with patented AI and ML analytics algorithms that enable
law enforcement agencies and other clients to search the open, deep, and dark webs for
illegal activities and bring malicious actors to justice. The company’s technology scans a
myriad of data sources based on operator-inputted search terms, and displays any
relevant information through Cobwebs’ intuitive user dashboard, enabling organizations to
build case reports or suspect profiles rapidly. Security teams can define general or case-
specific search perimeters and Cobwebs’ solution alerts operators when new information is
available for review through an automated monitoring feature. Security analysts can also
adjust alerts based on relevance to a specific case or incident. For instance, the company’s
solution rates notifications using sentiment analysis on a scale—i.e., positive, neutral, and
negative—allowing operators to view all the information that meets the operator’s search
criteria most in order of relevance. If analysts need to adjust the presented data’s
relevancy level, they can change it manually, and the platform will use this feedback to
adjust the scoring mechanism as part of its embed machine learning capability and update
future search or analysis to display additional data or adjust the relevance level of other
information previously presented.
Cobwebs’ solution allows operators to track down suspicious people and view their
connections with other people to expand out and reconstruct social circles (i.e., cliques)
and identify other persons-of-interest to build cases. The company’s technology allows
security analysts to conduct deeper dives into presented information to determine whether
they should further investigate or analyze their social circles. For example, an individual
may have over 50 mutual connections with another person on a social media platform, but
that does not mean they are a gang member or involved in a drug network; connected
individuals may be family members or co-workers. Alternatively, in a drug trafficking ring,
cliques can help operators identify drug importers and dealers, including social media
photographs and images obtained through public cameras.
Impressing Frost & Sullivan’s research analysts, Cobwebs’ technology recognizes
landmarks in persons of interests’ images to locate those individuals in real time or for
forensic evidence, drastically reducing a clients’ search time and resources and increasing
public safety and security. Moreover, the company’s technology traces fake accounts to
discover an individual’s real identity through various capabilities such as allowing
operators to extract location information through Internet protocol tracking and
geolocation visual mapping. Cobwebs’ technology enables operators to reduce false
positives and investigate situations deeper than many competing solutions. Notably,
Cobwebs’ solutions allow operators to navigate the deep web and dark web manually and
interact with suspects covertly through avatar management tools.
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Cobwebs’ technology is language-agnostic, enabling operators to search across languages to
identify illegal activities. For instance, if a security analyst searches for “cocaine” in a region
bordering the United States and Mexico, the engine will search English and Spanish
references to cocaine and present all relevant information. Furthermore, if a security analyst
only speaks English, they can translate the content into English via the dashboard without
the need to employ a translator, saving organizations operational expenditures. Moreover,
Cobwebs’ technology can search names, images, phone numbers, and both physical and
web addresses. Notably, the platform even detects, displays, and translates information in
languages that use different alphabet types, such as Russian or Chinese characters.
Customer Support, Company Growth, and the Value of Cobwebs’ Solutions
Cobwebs offers customer-oriented acquisition, sales, and lifetime support strategies, from
initial conversation and education to technical support and adding new features and
capabilities to its solutions. In conjunction with extensive research and development
processes, the company collaborates closely with customers to integrate market and
client-specific needs directly into its product roadmap, earning Cobwebs the trust,
business, and loyalty of its clients.
The company’s partnership with Microsoft enables Cobwebs to offer cloud-based solutions,
allowing remote access to searches and investigations. Operators can conduct rapid and
secure investigations from anywhere in the world through the flexible and scalable
platform, enabling organizations of any size to benefit from its technology. Moreover,
Cobwebs provides security-specific solutions, such as criminal investigations, cyber-crime,
drug trafficking, terrorism, situational awareness, natural disasters, cyber threats, and
asset protection, allowing clients to protect their unique environments. The company is
setting the market’s pace through its best-in-class technology and customer support,
positioning Cobwebs as an industry leader in the AI-powered web intelligence market.
Last year, Cobwebs expanded in the North American market and has seen significant
growth in the region as organizations need superior technologies to search, gather, and
analyze information to solve cases quickly or prevent incidents from escalating. As a
recent example, the company worked with a Central American country to gather
intelligence on a lead that a multi-national terrorist group from the Middle East was
attempting to recruit individuals to carry out attacks on government organizations.
Cobwebs worked with a special division in that Central American country to configure their
searches and gather information related to the lead to hunt down the individual
responsible. The culprit was a religious leader who was tracked down through social media
and other various sources where the individual discussed religious extremism, expressed
negative sentiments against the government and praised other terrorist groups’ attacks.
Knowing the religious leader’s identity allowed Cobwebs and the Central American
country’s special division to find other individuals involved in the terrorist group, which led
to the discovery of weapons and explosive-building materials and the detainment of all
participants before they could carry out a terrorist attack.
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Conclusion
With Internet connectivity growth, criminals turn to the open, deep, and dark webs to
facilitate their illegal activities. Law enforcement agencies and other organizations need
technologies that assist them in finding these malicious individuals and stopping their
crimes, both digitally and physically. Cobwebs Technologies develops game-changing
artificial intelligence-powered web intelligence solutions that empower organizations to
search, gather, and analyze information across the open, deep, and dark webs to solve
cases quickly, and even prevent incidents from occurring.
With its revolutionary, innovative, and comprehensive technology, exceptional customer
support, and strong overall performance, Frost & Sullivan is proud to present Cobwebs
Technologies with the 2019 Global Technology Innovation Award in the AI-powered web
intelligence market.
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Significance of Technology Innovation
Ultimately, growth in any organization depends upon finding new ways to excite the
market and upon maintaining a long-term commitment to innovation. At its core,
technology innovation, or any other type of innovation, can only be sustained with
leadership in three key areas: understanding demand, nurturing the brand, and
differentiating from the competition.
Understanding Technology Innovation Technology innovation begins with a spark of creativity that is systematically pursued,
developed, and commercialized. That spark can result from a successful partnership, a
productive in-house innovation group, or a bright-minded individual. Regardless of the
source, the success of any new technology is ultimately determined by its innovativeness
and its impact on the business as a whole.
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Key Benchmarking Criteria
For the Technology Innovation Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts independently evaluated
two key factors—Technology Attributes and Future Business Value—according to the
criteria identified below.
Technology Attributes
Criterion 1: Industry Impact
Requirement: Technology enables the pursuit of groundbreaking ideas, contributing to the
betterment of the entire industry.
Criterion 2: Product Impact
Requirement: Specific technology helps enhance features and functionalities of the entire
product line for the company.
Criterion 3: Scalability
Requirement: Technology is scalable, enabling new generations of products over time,
with increasing levels of quality and functionality.
Criterion 4: Visionary Innovation
Requirement: Specific new technology represents true innovation based on a deep
understanding of future needs and applications.
Criterion 5: Application Diversity
Requirement: New technology serves multiple products, multiple applications, and
multiple user environments.
Future Business Value
Criterion 1: Financial Performance
Requirement: Potential is high for strong financial performance in terms of revenue,
operating margins, and other relevant financial metrics.
Criterion 2: Customer Acquisition
Requirement: Specific technology enables acquisition of new customers, even as it
enhances value to current customers.
Criterion 3: Technology Licensing
Requirement: New technology displays great potential to be licensed across many
verticals and applications, thereby driving incremental revenue streams.
Criterion 4: Brand Loyalty
Requirement: New technology enhances the company’s brand, creating and/or nurturing
brand loyalty.
Criterion 5: Human Capital
Requirement: Customer impact is enhanced through the leverage of specific technology,
translating into positive impact on employee morale and retention.
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Best Practices Recognition: 10 Steps to Researching, Identifying, and Recognizing Best Practices
Frost & Sullivan analysts follow a 10-step process to evaluate Award candidates and
assess their fit with select best practice criteria. The reputation and integrity of the
Awards are based on close adherence to this process.
STEP OBJECTIVE KEY ACTIVITIES OUTPUT
1 Monitor,
target, and
screen
Identify Award recipient
candidates from around the
globe
Conduct in-depth industry
research
Identify emerging sectors
Scan multiple geographies
Pipeline of candidates who
potentially meet all best-
practice criteria
2 Perform
360-degree
research
Perform comprehensive,
360-degree research on all
candidates in the pipeline
Interview thought leaders
and industry practitioners
Assess candidates’ fit with
best-practice criteria
Rank all candidates
Matrix positioning of all
candidates’ performance
relative to one another
3
Invite
thought
leadership in
best
practices
Perform in-depth
examination of all candidates
Confirm best-practice criteria
Examine eligibility of all
candidates
Identify any information gaps
Detailed profiles of all
ranked candidates
4
Initiate
research
director
review
Conduct an unbiased
evaluation of all candidate
profiles
Brainstorm ranking options
Invite multiple perspectives
on candidates’ performance
Update candidate profiles
Final prioritization of all
eligible candidates and
companion best-practice
positioning paper
5
Assemble
panel of
industry
experts
Present findings to an expert
panel of industry thought
leaders
Share findings
Strengthen cases for
candidate eligibility
Prioritize candidates
Refined list of prioritized
Award candidates
6
Conduct
global
industry
review
Build consensus on Award
candidates’ eligibility
Hold global team meeting to
review all candidates
Pressure-test fit with criteria
Confirm inclusion of all
eligible candidates
Final list of eligible Award
candidates, representing
success stories worldwide
7 Perform
quality check
Develop official Award
consideration materials
Perform final performance
benchmarking activities
Write nominations
Perform quality review
High-quality, accurate, and
creative presentation of
nominees’ successes
8
Reconnect
with panel of
industry
experts
Finalize the selection of the
best-practice Award recipient
Review analysis with panel
Build consensus
Select recipient
Decision on which company
performs best against all
best-practice criteria
9 Communicate
recognition
Inform Award recipient of
Award recognition
Present Award to the CEO
Inspire the organization for
continued success
Celebrate the recipient’s
performance
Announcement of Award
and plan for how recipient
can use the Award to
enhance the brand
10 Take
strategic
action
Upon licensing, company is
able to share Award news
with stakeholders and
customers
Coordinate media outreach
Design a marketing plan
Assess Award’s role in future
strategic planning
Widespread awareness of
recipient’s Award status
among investors, media
personnel, and employees
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The Intersection between 360-Degree Research and Best Practices Awards
Research Methodology
Frost & Sullivan’s 360-degree research
methodology represents the analytical
rigor of our research process. It offers a
360-degree-view of industry challenges,
trends, and issues by integrating all 7 of
Frost & Sullivan's research methodologies.
Too often companies make important
growth decisions based on a narrow
understanding of their environment,
leading to errors of both omission and
commission. Successful growth strategies
are founded on a thorough understanding
of market, technical, economic, financial,
customer, best practices, and demographic
analyses. The integration of these research
disciplines into the 360-degree research
methodology provides an evaluation
platform for benchmarking industry
participants and for identifying those performing at best-in-class levels.
About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth
and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's
Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined
research and best practice models to drive the generation, evaluation and implementation
of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages more than 50 years of
experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses, and the
investment community from 45 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership,
please visit http://www.frost.com.
360-DEGREE RESEARCH: SEEING ORDER IN THE CHAOS