Design Considerations for a Cyber Incident Mission Impact Assessment (CIMIA) Process

Virtually all modern organizations have embedded information systems and networking technologies into their core business processes as a means to increase operational efficiency, improve decision making quality, reduce delays, and/or maximize profit. Unfortunately, this dependence can place the organization’s mission at risk when the loss or degradation of the confidentiality, integrity, availability, nonrepudiation, or authenticity of a critical information resource or flow occurs. In this paper, we motivate design considerations for an information asset-based, Cyber Incident Mission Impact Assessment (CIMIA) process whose goal is to provide decision makers with timely notification and relevant impact assessment, in terms of mission objectives, from the time an information incident is declared, until the incident is fully remediated. Keywordssituational awareness; cyber damage assessment; mission impact assessment