In recent years the topic of situational awareness (SA) has received increased attention given the complex environments that our militaries and intelligence services operate. SA is the field of study concerned with perception of the surroundings and derivative implications critical to decision makers in complex, dynamic areas such as military command and security. Given the positive outcomes of SA, it is now being applied to cyber space.
Cyber Situational Awareness (CSA) involves the understanding of what is happening
around a specified domain in an effort to understand just how information,
events, and anticipated results of actions initiated by command on projected goals
and objectives that have been established by command. Having a complete, insightful, accurate and timely CSA is essential for decision makers requiring changes to our decision and command infrastructure. This will require an expansion
of the current C4ISR framework to one that integrates aspects of the cyber
environment. During our collaborative research one individual proclaimed it
C8ISR — (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Combat systems,
Collaboration, Coordination, Code, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance)
all adapted to the cyber warfare operational domain.
Given the U.S. Military is the most modern, computerized force in the world, the
challenge of situational awareness in the cyber domain is far greater and more important than for any other military in the world. The C8ISR environment consists
of all fourteen elements of what is referred to as PROMISE.
P rocess and Procedures
R oles and Responsibilities
O rganization and Operations
M anagement and Measures
I nformation and Infrastructure
S ystems and Software
E ducation and Employees
The dynamic situations created by the adversaries and the cyber domain conditions
are unpredictable, and generate huge time pressures, increase existing workloads
and tax our mental models that are based on past experience. The integration
of cyber acts of aggressions will undoubtedly require change to decision making
constructs currently in use. Given the current threat conditions and operations
going on in the cyber domain, the adaptations of the decision making constructs
will not occur in the research labs, but on the frontlines of cyber space.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I promise you that the military is not the most modern, computerized force in the world.
Raise your hand if you've ever worked on Banyan Vines, 10base2 coax, FDDI fiber, VME hardware, mechanical relay logic gates, green-screen vector CRTs, an actual no-joke Line PrinTer, or magneto optical drives.
American civillians are the most modern, computerized force in the world.
With respect.
For starts, I feel it's time to put cyber awareness in high school. To train kids how to better protect their data & personal information. Also to teach them best practices when dealing with Virus or malware.
Military just needs time to upgrade all tech to the new advancements of recent as I see it.
May also help to have Uk & Japan play some cyber wargames with us to expose weakenesses that may be repaired.
Online security is one of my concerns, as Denial of Service attacks are regular & sometimes problematic on many gaming servers. Exploits & hacks to sell virtual items on a mass scale across various games is ongoing.
Vasts amount of personal information has been taken, most useless or to someone without a use for it but still some of that is abused & put in wrong hands.
The more we protect what we have, unexpose what we want kept safe, the more secure we really will be.
Tactical scenario gaming is a great idea, both wargames and command-level exercises. Typically, however, the coordinating command does not want to create a "losing team" that would be "losing under their supervision", so you end-up with really lame parameters. Like a single gunman, insider threat, on a Trident out to sea, with a five-shot revolver and no bomb. Or there is a bomb, but it never goes off. Or the carrier battle group that is having a hard time tracking the sub, so the sub bangs on its hull with a hammer for the rest of the exercise.
Not that these training scenarios aren't somehow beneficial, or that wargames don't give good practice… but please consider that there is a very real deficiency with the supervisory psychology at the supervisory levels of the military.