Visible to the public Data-Driven Model-Based Decision-Making - January 2016Conflict Detection Enabled

Submitted by awhitesell on Fri, 01/08/2016 - 3:11pm

Public Audience
Purpose: To highlight project progress. Information is generally at a higher level which is accessible to the interested public. All information contained in the report (regions 1-3) is a Government Deliverable/CDRL.

PI(s): William Sanders, Masooda Bashir, David Nicol, and Aad Van Moorsel*

Co-PI(s): Ken Keefe, Mohamad Noureddine, Charles Morriset* and Rob Cain* (*Newcastle University, UK)

HARD PROBLEM(S) ADDRESSED
This refers to Hard Problems, released November 2012.

  • Predictive Security Metrics - System security analysis requires a holistic approach that considers the behavior of non-human subsystem, bad actors or adversaries, and expected human participants such as users and system administrators. We are developing the HITOP modeling formalism to formally describe the behavior of human participants and how their decisions affect overall system performance and security. With this modeling methodology and the tool support we are developing, we will produce quantitative security metrics for cyber-human systems.
  • Human Behavior - Modeling and evaluating human behavior is challenging, but it is an imperative component in security analysis. Stochastic modeling serves as a good approximation of human behavior, but we intend to do more with the HITOP method, which considers a task based process modeling language that evaluates a human's opportunity, willingness, and capability to perform individual tasks in their daily behavior. Partnered with an effective data collection strategy to validate model parameters, we are working to provide a sound model of human behavior.

PUBLICATIONS
Papers published in this quarter as a result of this research. Include title, author(s), venue published/presented, and a short description or abstract. Identify which hard problem(s) the publication addressed. Papers that have not yet been published should be reported in region 2 below.

  • Ken Keefe and William H. Sanders, "Reliability Analysis with Dynamic Reliability Block Diagrams in the Mobius Modeling Tool", 9th EAI International Conference on Performance Evaluation Methodologies and Tools (VALUETOOLS), Berlin, Germany, December 14-16, 2015.

ACCOMPLISHMENT HIGHLIGHTS

In this period, we have completed our survey of the social sciences and psychology theories that discuss the behavior of human users in cyber security. We have identified five main theories and discussed each of them in depth. We were able to place our previously built SAN model within the context of the General Deterrence Theory, and discussed its importance as well as its shortcomings in capturing the behavior of users in predictive security models. We have submitted a summary of our findings as a regular research paper for the DSN'16 conference.

Efforts to develop a data collection strategy support tool for Mobius are progressing. Prototypes are being developed for both Mobius and PRISM to seek the best solution possible. The team is continuing its study of workflow resiliency and is preparing several publications.

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