Author: Elizabeth Pate-Cornell / Publishing Institution: Center for International Security and Cooperation

Author:: Marshall Kuypers and Elizabeth Pate-Cornell
Publication Date:: 02-2016
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:: Despite significant interest in cybersecurity, data on cyber security incidents remains scarce. On April 16, 2015, the US Department of Energy released data on 1,131 cybersecurity incidents through a Freedom of Information Act Request. While only containing the date, location, and type of incident, several interesting insights can be kneaded from the data. In this paper, we analyze the DOE security incident data and perform a statistical analysis on the rate of incidents. We find that the rate of cybersecurity incidents is decreasing over time and that incidents can be modeled stochastically. We believe that this is further evidence that cyber risk can be accurately evaluated with data-driven models.
Topic:: Security and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:: United States

Author:: Marshall Kuypers and Elizabeth Pate-Cornell
Publication Date:: 12-2015
Content Type:: Working Paper
Institution:: Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:: Organizations often record cyber security incidents to track employee workload, satisfy auditors, fulfill reporting requirements, or to analyze cyber risk. While security incident databases are often neglected, they contain invaluable information that can be leveraged to assess the threats, vulnerabilities, and impacts of cyber attacks, providing a detailed view of cyber risk in an organization. This paper emphasizes what data is useful for a risk assessments and how data should be recorded. When a security incident occurs, it is often unclear what information should be recorded about the incident. Currently, the data that are tracked are largely driven by compliance for reporting requirements and valuable information is not recorded, or information is not recorded in a way that makes analysis easy. For example, incidents are often documented in unstructured reports that require a manual analysis to identify trends. Explicitly recording certain data in structured form makes analysis much more accurate and efficient. This paper is focused on answering the question, ‘What should we record?’
Topic:: Cybersecurity

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