Mission cyber security situation assessment using impact dependency graphs

The paper proposes a conceptual framework and a method for assessing impact that cyber attacks might have to cyber assets, services, and missions. The paper describes the model of a cyber attack based on an extended conceptual graph. It introduces the notion of a cyber-terrain as a multilevel information structure containing assets and services, and their inter-dependencies. It also describes the model of a mission, and impact dependency graph that in a uniform way presents the dependencies between the cyber terrain and missions. The paper presents an algorithmic base how to calculate impacts that cyber attacks cause to the directly attacked assets, how the direct impacts propagate through the inter-asset, service, and mission dependencies and affect the operational capacity of ongoing missions.