Cognitive Task Analysis Based Modeling and Simulation Environment for Cyber Training and Assessment

The goal of the proposed work is to develop simulation and analysis model based on cognitive task analysis for cyber situation awareness, for human-in-the-loop testing and training. Cognitive task analysis technique is a prominent approach that captures knowledge representation used by experts to perform complex tasks. It provides a comprehensive vulnerability assessment using cognitive metrics to quantify risks. Situation awareness involves perception of evolving status and attributes of elements, comprehension of combined observations to evaluate current situation in order to make predictions of possible future based on past experience and knowledge. The overall system architecture of our proposed simulation model tool involves the following components: (1) Cognitive task analysis specification, (2) simulation model with defined cognitive metrics to quantify performance of vulnerability assessment, (3) visualization and interface to human-in-the-loop testing and training to determine psychological validity of the tool. For this work, we will collaborate with the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at University of Delaware. This forms a strong partnership because the proposed work is in-line with a NSF funded project at the university for Regional Cyber-security Education Initiative. The developed simulation and analysis models will be used as a tool for training cyber-security analysts.