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Forsythe, James C.

Publications and source records attributed to Forsythe, James C..

15 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Operationally-Relevant Cyber Situational Awareness Tool Development.

Research was undertaken to gain an understanding of the interplay between cyber security professionals and the software tools utilized in performing their jobs. Substantial investments are devoted to purchasing and developing software tools targeting cyber security operations. However, development is largely based on anecdotal knowledge concerning the work processes, cognitive demands, and the needs and requirements of cyber security analysts. The current study first characterized the workflow of a Cyber Security Incidence Response (CSIRT) team, including their use of software tools, and instantiated this workflow within a simulation model. Next, data was collected during cyber security training exercises reflecting the use of software tools. It was discovered that while cyber security professionals rely heavily on specialized software tools, their jobs require that they effectively integrate the use of specialized software tools with the use of general- purpose software tools.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Measuring Human Performance within Computer Security Incident Response Teams

Human performance has become a pertinent issue within cyber security. However, this research has been stymied by the limited availability of expert cyber security professionals. This is partly attributable to the ongoing workload faced by cyber security professionals, which is compound ed by the limited number of qualified personnel and turnover of personnel across organizations. Additionally, it is difficult to conduct research, and particularly, openly published research, due to the sensitivity inherent to cyber ope rations at most organizations. As an alternative, the current research has focused on data collection during cyber security training exercises. These events draw individuals with a range of knowledge and experience extending from seasoned professionals to recent college graduates to college students. The current paper describes research involving data collection at two separate cyber security exercises. This data collection involved multiple measures which included behavioral performance based on human - machine transactions and questionnaire - based assessments of cyber security experience.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

Nested Narratives Final Report

In cybersecurity forensics and incident response, the story of what has happened is the most important artifact yet the one least supported by tools and techniques. Existing tools focus on gathering and manipulating low-level data to allow an analyst to investigate exactly what happened on a host system or a network. Higher-level analysis is usually left to whatever ad hoc tools and techniques an individual may have developed. We discuss visual representations of narrative in the context of cybersecurity incidents with an eye toward multi-scale illustration of actions and actors. We envision that this representation could smoothly encompass individual packets on a wire at the lowest level and nation-state-level actors at the highest. We present progress to date, discuss the impact of technical risk on this project and highlight opportunities for future work.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗