Dynamic cyber-incident response

Permission to make digital or hard copies of this publication for internal use within NATO and for personal or educational use when for non-profi t or non-commercial purposes is granted providing that copies bear this notice and a full citation on the first page. Any other reproduction or transmission requires prior written permission by NATO CCD COE.Traditional cyber-incident response models have not changed significantly since the early days of the Computer Incident Response with even the most recent incident response life cycle model advocated by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (Cichonski, Millar, Grance, & Scarfone, 2012) bearing a striking resemblance to the models proposed by early leaders in the field e.g. Carnegie-Mellon University (West-Brown, et al., 2003) and the SANS Institute (Northcutt, 2003). Whilst serving the purpose of producing coherent and effective response plans, these models appear to be created from the perspectives of Computer Security professionals with no referenced academic grounding. They attempt to defend against, halt and recover from a cyber-attack as quickly as possible. However, other actors inside an organisation may have priorities which conflict with these traditional approaches and may ultimately better serve the longer-term goals and objectives of an organisation

Expanding alliance: ANZUS cooperation and Asia–Pacific security

Is an alliance conceived as a bulwark against a resurgence of Japanese militarism and which cut its military and intelligence teeth in the Cold War is still relevant to today’s strategic concerns? Overview The alliance between Australia and the US, underpinned by the formal ANZUS Treaty of 1951, continues to be a central part of Australian defence and security thinking and an instrument of American policy in the Asia–Pacific. How is it that an alliance conceived as a bulwark against a resurgence of Japanese militarism and which cut its military and intelligence teeth in the Cold War is still relevant to today’s strategic concerns? The answer is partly—and importantly—that the core values of the ANZUS members are strongly aligned, and successive Australian governments and American presidential administrations have seen great value in working with like-minded partners to ensure Asia–Pacific security. Far from becoming a historical curiosity, today it’s not just relevant, but of greater importance than has been the case in the past few decades. To explore new ideas on how to strengthen the US–Australia alliance, ASPI conducted a high-level strategic dialogue in Honolulu in July this year. Discussions canvassed the future strategic environment; the forthcoming Australian Defence White Paper; budget, sovereignty and expectation risks; and cooperation in the maritime, land, air, cyber, space and intelligence domains. A key purpose of the Honolulu dialogue was to help ASPI develop policy recommendations on the alliance relationship for government. This report is the product of those discussions

ECHO Information sharing models

As part of the ECHO project, the Early Warning System (EWS) is one of four technologies under development. The E-EWS will provide the capability to share information to provide up to date information to all constituents involved in the E-EWS. The development of the E-EWS will be rooted in a comprehensive review of information sharing and trust models from within the cyber domain as well as models from other domains

Crime scripting: A systematic review

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version.More than two decades after the publication of Cornish’s seminal work about the script-theoretic approach to crime analysis, this article examines how the concept has been applied in our community. The study provides evidence confirming that the approach is increasingly popular; and takes stock of crime scripting practices through a systematic review of over one hundred scripts published between 1994 and 2018. The results offer the first comprehensive picture of this approach, and highlights new directions for those interested in using data from cyber-systems and the Internet of Things to develop effective situational crime prevention measures

Scenarios for the development of smart grids in the UK: literature review

Smart grids are expected to play a central role in any transition to a low-carbon energy future, and much research is currently underway on practically every area of smart grids. However, it is evident that even basic aspects such as theoretical and operational definitions, are yet to be agreed upon and be clearly defined. Some aspects (efficient management of supply, including intermittent supply, two-way communication between the producer and user of electricity, use of IT technology to respond to and manage demand, and ensuring safe and secure electricity distribution) are more commonly accepted than others (such as smart meters) in defining what comprises a smart grid. It is clear that smart grid developments enjoy political and financial support both at UK and EU levels, and from the majority of related industries. The reasons for this vary and include the hope that smart grids will facilitate the achievement of carbon reduction targets, create new employment opportunities, and reduce costs relevant to energy generation (fewer power stations) and distribution (fewer losses and better stability). However, smart grid development depends on additional factors, beyond the energy industry. These relate to issues of public acceptability of relevant technologies and associated risks (e.g. data safety, privacy, cyber security), pricing, competition, and regulation; implying the involvement of a wide range of players such as the industry, regulators and consumers. The above constitute a complex set of variables and actors, and interactions between them. In order to best explore ways of possible deployment of smart grids, the use of scenarios is most adequate, as they can incorporate several parameters and variables into a coherent storyline. Scenarios have been previously used in the context of smart grids, but have traditionally focused on factors such as economic growth or policy evolution. Important additional socio-technical aspects of smart grids emerge from the literature review in this report and therefore need to be incorporated in our scenarios. These can be grouped into four (interlinked) main categories: supply side aspects, demand side aspects, policy and regulation, and technical aspects.

Cyber Threat Observatory: Design and Evaluation of an Interactive Dashboard for Computer Emergency Response Teams

Computer emergency response teams (CERTs) of the public sector provide preventive and reactive cybersecurity services for authorities, citizens, and enterprises. However, their tasks of monitoring, analyzing, and communicating threats to establish cyber situational awareness are getting more complex due to the increasing information volume disseminated through public channels. Besides the time-consuming data collection for incident handling and daily reporting, CERTs are often confronted with irrelevant, redundant, or incredible information, exacerbating the time-critical prevention of and response to cyber threats. Thus, this design science research paper presents the user-centered design and evaluation of the Cyber Threat Observatory, which is an automatic, cross-platform and real-time cybersecurity dashboard. Based on expert scenario-based walkthroughs and semi-structured interviews (N=12), it discusses six design implications, including customizability and filtering, data source modularity, cross-platform interrelations, content assessment algorithms, integration with existing software, as well as export and communication capabilities

Cyber Situational Awareness in Critical Infrastructure Protection

The European Union promotes collaboration between authorities and the private sector, and the providers of the most critical services to society face security related obligations. In this paper, critical infrastructure is seen as a system of systems that can be subject to cyber-attacks and&nbsp; other disturbances. Situational awareness (SA) enhances preparations for and decision-making during assessed and unforeseen disruptive incidents, and promoting Cyber effective situational&nbsp; awareness (CSA) requires information sharing between the different interest groups. This research is constructive in nature, where innovative constructions developed as solutions&nbsp; for domain-specific real world problems, while the research question is: “How can cyber&nbsp; situational awareness protect critical infrastructures?” The Observe – Orient – Decide – Act (OODA) loop is examined as a way to promote&nbsp; collaboration towards a shared situational picture, awareness and understanding to meet challenges of forming CSA in relation to risk assessment (RA) and improving resilience. Three levels of organizational decision-making are examined in relation a five-layer cyber structure of an organization to provide a more comprehensive systems view of organizational cyber security. Successful, crisis-management efforts enable organizations to sustain and resume operations, minimize losses, and adapt to manage future incidents, as many critical&nbsp;infrastructures typically lack resilience and may easily lose essential functionality when hit by&nbsp;an adverse event. Situation awareness is the main prerequisite towards cyber security. Without situation awareness, it is impossible to systematically prevent, identify, and protect the system from cyber incidents.</p