Adaptive Visualization of Complex Networks with FocalPoint

Abstract

Maintaining situational awareness of a dynamic global computer network that consists of ten to hundreds of thousands of computers is a complex task for cyber administrators and operators looking to understand, plan and conduct operations in real time. Currently, cyber specialists must manually navigate complex networks by continuous cycles of overviews, drilldowns and manually mapping network incidents to mission impact. This is inefficient as manually maneuvering of network data is laborious, induces cognitive overload, and is prone to errors caused by distractive information resulting in important information and impacts not being seen. We are investigating “FocalPoint” an adaptive level of detail (LOD) recommender system tailored for hierarchical network information structures. FocalPoint reasons about contextual information associated with the network, user task, and user cognitive load to tune the presentation of network visualization displays to improve user performance in perception, comprehension and projection of current situational awareness. Our system is applied to two complex information constructs important to dynamic cyber network operations: network maps and attack graphs. The key innovations include: (a) context-aware automatic tailoring of complex network views, (b) multi-resolution hierarchical graph aggregation, (c) incorporation of new computational models for adaptive-decision making on user tasks, cost/benefit utility and human situation awareness, and (d) user interaction techniques to integrate recommendations into the network viewing system. Our aim is to have a direct impact on planning and operations management for complex networks by; overcoming information overload, preventing tunnel vision, reducing cognitive load, and increasing time available to focus on optimum level of details of the global network space and missions.