Visual Cyber Situational Awareness for Critical Infrastructures

The increasing number of security accidents, due to failures or cyber attacks, that critical infrastructures/smart grids are experimenting is pushing researchers to investigate on the different issues associated with such a problem. Among them, an increasing attention has been devoted to the development of monitoring systems that exploit geographical data about the network under control. This papers focuses on situational awareness and describes a Visual Analytics solution for monitoring and put in tight relation data from network level (computers, routers, etc.) with organization's mission. The goal of the proposed solution is to make security officers aware of both the actual network endangerment level and the impact it actually has on the infrastructure mission, making clear the relationships and the responsibilities that exist between the network level and the business level. The solution proposed is then instantiated on ACEA infrastructure, a company that provides power and water purification services to cities in central Italy (millions of end users).