Review of Situational Awareness for Computer Network Defense

Situation Awareness

Situation awareness (SA) is made up of two words ‘situation’ and ‘awareness’. According to Chambers 21^st Century Dictionary (Chambers, 1997), Situation (noun) is defined as:

• 1.

  A set of circumstances or state of affairs.

• 2.

  A place, position or location.

• 3.

  A job; employment . Example, situations vacant.

• 4.

  A critical point in the action of a play or in the development of the plot of a novel.

Situational is adjective of situation. ETYMOLOGY: 15c. Awareness (noun) is defined as the fact or state of being aware, or conscious, especially of matters that are particularly relevant or topical (Chambers 1997). Putting these two words together, we define Situational Awareness as the state of being aware of circumstances that exist around us, especially those that are particularly relevant to us and which we are interested about. By this definition, situational awareness means, as people, we seek to be aware of situations around us, particularly those that we are interested in. For example:

• •

  Every driver wants to know about obstacles along their way, especially those that may lead to an accident. For instance, when reversing, drivers usually look into the rear and side mirrors of their car to ensure they are aware of any impeding situation, for instance objects, or obstacles, or onward moving vehicles so as to be apprised of the risk of such situations and avoid them.

• •

  A nursing mother wants to maintain situational awareness of the environment which her crawling baby is in, especially; she wants to keep the baby away from any objects that can be of harm to the baby such as breakable (glass) cups, scissors, photo frames, table knives, etc.

• •

  Politicians want to be aware of how popular their government is, for instance, by checking what the polls say. Moreover they do this especially when new legislation or bills have been passed.

• •

  In computer network security and information security organizations want to be aware of the vulnerabilities of their assets and weaknesses that may exist in the mechanisms used to protect their assets, and the risks that may result should vulnerabilities be exploited. More importantly, organizations want to know about the vulnerabilities of assets which if exploited could have a significant or even catastrophic impact on the organization.

• •

  In computer network defense the mission (agency or organization) wants to be aware of the vulnerabilities that may exist in its systems and any weakness that may exist in the systems defense controls, including possible threats and threat actors (such as, foreign intelligence services) that may be interested in compromising, breaching or circumventing its defense systems and wants to be aware of the motivation and capability of such threat actors.