GCRI · Cybersecurity and Digital Resilience

Cybersecurity practice

Cybersecurity and cryptography is the technology this platform stewards for the network. It protects the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information and systems through architecture, controls, monitoring, cryptography and response, measured against recognised frameworks.

01Register

Cybersecurity practice on the record.

Method recordSTEM method
  1. MethodCybersecurity and cryptography
  2. StewardCybersecurity and Digital Resilience
  3. Applied inCybersecurity and Digital Resilience
  4. Canonical pageSTEM Commons
02Application

What cybersecurity and cryptography does here.

Cybersecurity and cryptography protect information systems and data from unauthorised access, disruption and manipulation. They address threats that can spread rapidly across interconnected digital and physical systems. In cyber and digital resilience and critical infrastructure, cybersecurity analysis identifies how a single compromise can propagate across sectors that share software, vendors or networks. It informs resilience requirements and cyber insurance. The canonical description is on the STEM Commons.

Control baselines and gap analysis

An organisation's controls are mapped against framework outcomes, such as NIST CSF functions, to find gaps that matter for its critical services and set priorities.

Exploited vulnerability prioritisation

Vulnerabilities are ranked by evidence of exploitation and exploit likelihood, not severity scores alone, so remediation goes first to what attackers use.

Detection coverage mapping

Logging and detection rules are mapped against attacker techniques in MITRE ATT&CK to show which behaviours would be seen and which would not.

03Simulator

A cascade through interdependent networks.

A hazard footprint takes out co-located assets in every layer; fragmentation, dependency between layers and overload of the survivors then spread the failure. The 3D view separates the layers by depth. Teaching model with stated illustrative values, not a prediction.

Controls

Assets per layer
18
Hazard footprint
8% of area
Assets that depend on another layer
60%
Spare capacity (tolerance)
30%

Readouts

Assets hit by the hazard
7%
Assets still working
50%
Amplification of the initial damage
6.8 times
Steps to settle
4
Numbers, methods and sources
StepData centres working (%)Networks working (%)Power working (%)
08310094
1729489
2726783
3723967
4563956

Methods

  1. Interdependent networks Buldyrev and others (2010), Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks, Nature 464
  2. Overload cascades Motter and Lai (2002), Physical Review E 66
  3. Betweenness load Brandes (2001), Journal of Mathematical Sociology 25
  4. Multilayer networks Kivela and others (2014), Journal of Complex Networks 2
  5. Infrastructure interdependencies Rinaldi, Peerenboom and Kelly (2001), IEEE Control Systems 21(6)
  6. Uncertainty fan (parameter Monte Carlo) Spiegelhalter, Pearson and Short (2011), Visualising uncertainty about the future, Science 333
  7. One-at-a-time sensitivity (tornado) Saltelli and others (2008), Global Sensitivity Analysis: The Primer, Wiley

Data

The model runs on the teaching values set by the controls. To calibrate it for a place, read it against these admitted layers and series, which this page's map can draw:

  • Major roads Natural Earth
  • Railways Natural Earth
  • Seaports Natural Earth
  • Airports Natural Earth
  • Urban extents Natural Earth
  • Night lights tonight, outages (VIIRS Day/Night Band) NASA/NOAA VIIRS (Suomi NPP) · register nasa.gibs.context-live-layers
  • Natural events (NASA EONET) NASA EONET · register nasa.eonet.events
A cascade through interdependent networks. Illustrative teaching model: it runs on the values set by the controls, not on measured data. Methods: Interdependent networks (Buldyrev and others (2010), Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks, Nature 464); Overload cascades (Motter and Lai (2002), Physical Review E 66); Betweenness load (Brandes (2001), Journal of Mathematical Sociology 25).
04Data

What the method consumes.

Datasets and records used by cybersecurity and cryptography on this platform, with the role each plays and the label its values carry. Sources are listed in the source register.

DataRoleLabel
CISA KEV catalogueExploited vulnerabilitiesPublished statistics
FIRST EPSSExploit likelihoodESTIMATED
MITRE ATT&CKTechnique catalogueREPORTED
Organisational telemetryDetection coverageOBSERVED
05Methods and evidence

How cybersecurity practice is modelled, measured and tested.

The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.

System model

The couplings between the systems in cybersecurity practice: signs of influence, a reinforcing and a balancing loop, and cross-links where stress jumps.

++−+CyberCritical infrastructureCommunitiesEconomyR reinforcingB balancing
Causal loop diagram from the page's systems; signs show the direction of influence. Illustrative structure for a system dynamics or network model, not estimated couplings.
FAIR guiding principles · GO FAIR and FORCE11W3C PROV · World Wide Web ConsortiumGuidance on consistent treatment of uncertainties · IPCCCEOS Analysis Ready Data · Committee on Earth Observation Satellites
06Validation

How results are checked.

Controls are tested through red-team exercises, audits and formal analysis of cryptographic schemes. Incident data are used to check whether defences performed as intended.

CheckHow it is done
Control testingControls are tested, not only documented
Detection validationDetection rules are tested with simulated techniques
Framework mapping reviewMappings to frameworks are reviewed by a second analyst

Adversaries adapt, so historical data may not reflect future attacks. Software supply chains and legacy systems introduce weaknesses that are hard to inventory.

08Stewardship

Who maintains the method.

Cybersecurity and Digital Resilience stewards cybersecurity and cryptography for the Consortium and reviews how it is applied across platforms.

09Questions

Questions and answers.

What are the limits of cybersecurity and cryptography in this field?
Adversaries adapt, so historical data may not reflect future attacks. Software supply chains and legacy systems introduce weaknesses that are hard to inventory.
How are results checked?
Controls are tested through red-team exercises, audits and formal analysis of cryptographic schemes. Incident data are used to check whether defences performed as intended.
Are the values on this page real?
The data names, roles and checks are real descriptions of practice. The canvas shows a design of the method's use, not a run; no result is reported here.
Where else is this method applied?
The canonical method page lists every platform that applies it.
ReportsContribute

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Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

GCRICybersecurity and Digital ResilienceStrategic SystemsScenario and Stress-Test
Cybersecurity and Digital Resilience

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