Cyber Assets in the Battlefield Network: Situational Awareness of Mission Critical Computing Resources

Net-centric warfare places burdens on mission planners and commanders to understand dependencies, readiness, mobility, interoperability, and risk of cyber assets in addition to kinetic assets. They need to know "which computing assets are required for the success of the mission," "are there threats to their mission-readiness," "what is the impact if an asset is breached," and "are they where they should be at this point of the mission?" The questioner's role determines the form of the answer: commanders want go/no-go status of major mission elements, and expect a geographic frame of reference. By contrast, the J6 responsible for network operations wants to know the network location of cyber assets that are threatened, and whether redundant assets can ensure continuity of operations. Secure Decisions proposes to design new visual representations that integrate cyber assets into a battlefield tactical display that provides commanders with total situational awareness of the modern battlefield and empowers mission planners to integrate cyber assets with other mission-critical resources. We propose role-based views that customize the form and type of information on the display, based on operator roles. Our approach leverages existing tactical display technologies in a realistic plan leading to operational transition within three years.