Accelerated Learning for Cyber Insider Threat Reduction (XL-CITR)

Future U.S. Information Systems will be subject to increased attacks. These attacks will come from both internal and external threats. As reflected by the budgets for combating these threats, external cyber threats are assumed to be more likely. By comparison, internal threats to cyber networks from U.S. personnel receive little attention; yet, the consequences can be even more devastating. Although technical solutions can alert management, supervisors or auditors still would be required to take immediate actions to limit the scope of the damages. In addition to automatic defense systems, these supervisors must be alert to behavioral markers of suspicious behavior or attitudes on the part of employees. In particular, cyber network supervisors must be trained to identify behavioral signs that might indicate that an employee intends to commit an insider crime. To address this challenge, the TiER1 Performance Solutions Team proposes to validate its Phase I design of the XL-CITR system (Accelerated Learning for Cyber Insider Threat Reduction), and to fully develop the training system that will properly teach supervisors, in the Air Force, DoD, or in any domain, to detect and thwart insider threats to cyber networks.