US Patent 10986110 Anomaly and causation detection in computing environments using counterfactual processing

Anomaly and causation detection in computing environments are disclosed. An example method includes receiving an input stream of data instances for a time series, each of the data instances being time stamped and including at least one principle value and a set of categorical attributes; generating anomaly scores for each of the data instances over continuous time intervals; detecting a change in the anomaly scores over the continuous time intervals for the data instances; and identifying which of the set of categorical attributes of the data instances caused the change in the anomaly scores using a counterfactual analysis. The counterfactual analysis may comprise removing a portion of the data instances; regenerating the anomaly scores for each of the remaining data instances over the continuous time intervals; and if the anomaly scores are improved, identifying the portion as a cause of anomalous activity. Recommendations to remediate the cause may be generated.