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Gaps and Opportunities in Situational Awareness for Cybersecurity

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Published:02 September 2020Publication History
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Abstract

Demand is present among security practitioners for improving cyber situational awareness (SA), but capability and assessment have not risen to match. SA is an integral component of cybersecurity for everyone from individuals to business to response teams and threat exchanges. In this Field Note, we highlight existing research and our field observations, a recent review of cyber SA research literature, and call upon the research community to help address three research problems in situational awareness for cybersecurity. The gaps suggest the need to (1) understand what cyber SA is from the human operators’ perspectives, then (2) measure it so that (3) the community can learn whether SA makes a difference in meaningful ways to cybersecurity, and whether methods, technology, or other solutions would improve SA and thus, improve those outcomes.

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          cover image Digital Threats: Research and Practice
          Digital Threats: Research and Practice  Volume 1, Issue 3
          Field Notes
          September 2020
          93 pages
          EISSN:2576-5337
          DOI:10.1145/3415596
          Issue’s Table of Contents

          Copyright © 2020 ACM

          Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM acknowledges that this contribution was authored or co-authored by an employee, contractor or affiliate of the United States government. As such, the Government retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free right to publish or reproduce this article, or to allow others to do so, for Government purposes only.

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          Publication History

          • Published: 2 September 2020
          • Online AM: 7 May 2020
          • Accepted: 1 February 2020
          • Revised: 1 January 2020
          • Received: 1 August 2019
          Published in dtrap Volume 1, Issue 3

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