Improving Metrics in Cyber Resiliency: A Study from CSA

By Dr. Senthil Arul, Lead Author, Improving Metrics in Cyber Resiliency

With the growth in cloud computing, businesses rely on the network to access information about operational assets being stored away from the local server. Decoupling information assets from other operational assets could result in poor operational resiliency if the cloud is compromised. Therefore, to keep the operational resiliency unaffected, it is essential to bolster information asset resiliency in the cloud. To study the resiliency of cloud computing, the CSA formed a research team consisting of members from both private and public sectors within the Incident Management and Forensics Working Group and the Cloud Cyber Incident Sharing Center. To measure cyber resiliency, the team leveraged a model developed to measure the resiliency of a community after an earthquake. Expanding this model to cybersecurity introduced two new variables that could be used to improve cyber resiliency.

• Elapsed Time to Identify Failure (ETIF)
• Elapsed Time to Identify Threat (ETIT)

Measuring these and developing processes to lower the values of ETIF and ETIT can improve the resiliency of an information system.

The study also looked at recent cyberattacks and measured ETIF for each of the attacks. The result showed that the forensic analysis process is not standard across all industries and, as such, the data in the public domain are not comparable. Therefore, to improve cyber resiliency, the team recommends that the calculation and publication of ETIF be transferred to an independent body (such as companies in IDS space) from the companies that experienced cyberattacks. A technical framework and appropriate regulatory framework need to be created to enable the measurement and reporting of ETIF and ETIT.

Download the full study.