This quarter’s CSIAC Journal contains five articles that offer some perspectives to address the often-heard phrase “Cyber Is Hard”, usually associated with gnashing of teeth and exasperated sighs.
In particular, how can the Department of Defense deliver new concepts across the train/exercise/execute spectrum to provision cyber capabilities that can effectively address the rapidly changing world of cyber. To call cyber “multi-faceted” is too simple. Compared to the standard observation about near-sighted people observing an elephant in the room (everyone sees an aspect of the elephant, but nobody can see the whole animal), cyber is more like a zoo of animals in a room and the people are trying to find a single cage to put them in by collaborating on what their specific animals are like. Common ground is hard to find. Effectively moving forward involves smart people addressing as much as they can in their domain, while collaborating amongst themselves to share vocabulary and discover any possible higher-level common threads to help tie things together. The articles following cover many ideas and perspectives for the “cyber-as-zoo” we find ourselves in. The way ahead, unsurprisingly, is to maintain our focus on models and pragmatic demonstrations of practical aspects of cyber, while maintaining a dialogue and collaboration across domains. Over time, that approach will build a cyber terrain much like the modern equivalent of zoos, without cages – larger spaces, effective partitions, shared interactions where reasonable, higher-level understanding of relationships between domains.
Articles In This Issue
Cyber-As-Zoo: Multidisciplinary Cyber Struggle
This quarter’s CSIAC Journal contains five articles that offer some perspectives to address the often-heard phrase “Cyber Is Hard”, usually associated with gnashing of teeth and exasperated sighs. In particular, how can the Department of Defense deliver new concepts across the train/exercise/execute spectrum to provision...Cybersecurity Competency Assessment Using Augmented Qualification Standards
Determining the capabilities of cybersecurity personnel is essential to support the Department of Defense (DoD) Cyber Strategy. The cyber ability of the DoD is contingent upon the continued high standard of performance of cybersecurity and computer network defense (CND) personnel. These personnel are all members...A Collaboration Pipeline for Cybersecurity Research, Analytics, and Tools
Cybersecurity Data Gap Network and host-based sensors collect data that are foundational for current-day cybersecurity technologies such as intrusion detection and prevention systems. However, for cybersecurity incidents, these data only tell a part of the story. Lacking are the data from the inside view (or...Enduring, Fleeting, Future: A brief overview of current sentiment and emotional analysis, a look forward
Introduction Sentiment and emotion analysis are critical tools in knowledge aggregation and interfacing with people. As we move from the industrial age, where wealth is measured in capital, into the information age, Barbara Endicott-Popovsky suggests that knowledge will be the new measure of wealth [1]....Cyber Operational Architecture Training System – Cyber for All
Current methods for conducting cyber training are incompatible with the traditional, simulation-based training architectures used to conduct battlestaff training. As a result, there is little to no interaction between the cyber domain and the traditional warfighting domains during exercises. This situation does not accurately reflect...The Elusive Nature of “Key Cyber Terrain”
The concept of “Key Cyber Terrain” has gained popularity within the Cyberspace Operations community. The term is used as an analogy to the more traditionally familiar concept of “Key Terrain” that is utilized by commander’s to identify physical terrain features (hills, mountains, choke points, etc.)...
