Distributed Real-Time Information Assurance Management Technologies

The objective of the research is to produce a technology that will effectively automate the processes of recognizing security threats to BMDS under the conditions of unpredictable dynamic situations and the periods of heightened alerts. Our method will provide human operators with results in the context of tactical and operational BMDS situations and gives sufficient explanations needed for future corrective actions. Proposed work will use a novel technology of Multi-Agent Systems Based Situation Management (MAS-SM) developed at Altusys. MAS-SM integrates three key technologies: (a) Real-Time Spatio-Temporal Event Correlation, (b) Analogical Case-Based Reasoning, and (c) Distributed Multi-Agent Architecture of BDI-Agents with Situation Awareness (BDI-SA). We will follow the architectural principles MAS-SM and extend them to meet the specific requirements of MDA07-039: an understanding of incidents happening in missile defense systems and networks; a focus on the distribution, adaptability, correlation, and virtualization capabilities; a support for automatic actions to detect insider threats, external malicious attacks, and dynamic operational events; a comprehensive situational awareness of BMDS and surrounding operational context There will be a mutual benefit between the proposed work and our current Air Force SBIR “Situation Awareness and Impact Assessment for Cyber Network Defense” under contract FA8750-07-C-0126.