Measuring the Utility of a Cyber Incident Mission Impact Assessment (CIMIA) Notification Process

Information is a critical asset on which all modern organizations depend to meet their mission objectives. Military organizations, in particular, have embedded Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) into their core mission processes as a means to increase their operational efficiency, exploit automation, improve decision quality, and enable real-time situational awareness. However, an extreme dependence upon ICT results in an environment where a cyber incident can result in severe mission degradation, or possibly failure, with catastrophic consequences to life, limb, and property. In this paper, we present the initial results of an experiment designed to measure the utility of a Cyber Incident Mission Impact Assessment (CIMIA) notification process. CIMIA is focused upon minimizing the consequences following an information incident by maintaining real-time situational awareness of mission critical resources so appropriate contingency actions can be taken in a timely manner to assure mission success. The results of the experiment show that implementing a CIMIA notification process significantly reduced the response time required for subjects to recognize and take proper contingency measures. The research confirms that timely and relevant notification following a cyber incident is an essential element of mission assurance. KeywordsCIMIA, Cyber incident notification, mission assurance, human subjects experiment, contingency planning