Network Risk Estimation: A Risk Estimation Paradigm for Cyber Networks

What is it about?

Cybersecurity tools can only directly check part of a large network at any given time, leaving uncertainty about the risk posed by unmonitored devices. This paper introduces Network Risk Estimation (NRE), a method that uses patterns in network communications to infer how security risk may spread between connected devices. It combines these inferred relationships with any available alerts or risk measurements to continuously estimate the risk and uncertainty for every device in the network. Tests on public cybersecurity datasets show that this network-wide approach provides a more reliable picture of whether malicious activity is present when direct measurements are limited. The estimates can also support practical decisions, such as identifying high-risk devices or choosing safer routes for network traffic, and the method is computationally efficient enough for real-time use.

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Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash

Photo by BoliviaInteligente on Unsplash