Cover-VT: Converged Security Visualization Tool

Abstract

The amount of data that floods today's networks is well beyond what security analysts can manage by textual means alone. In an effort to solve this problem, researchers have explored different methods of visualizing network security threats. There is little debate that humans can perceive more information visually than textually. The problem is that the majority of visualization tools in practice or proposed do not take efficient visualization techniques into consideration. As a result, it is difficult to get a high-level view of the network that facilitates rapid isolation of network attacks. We propose the Converged Security Visualization Tool (Cover-VT) to solve the efficient visualization problem. Cover-VT was designed to provide analysts with a high-level view of network threats using geographic information systems. The tool allows for rapid identification of threats by minimizing the cognitive obstacles to efficient threat location. Cover-VT includes the capability to drill-down on a node of interest for additional details and even filter out unwanted data. Cover-VT was designed with usability in mind, making it easy to comprehend while assisting the analyst in rapid threat identification. Many different security tools make up a security analyst's tool kit. Cover-VT was developed as an effective security visualization system that integrates existing security tools and network security systems.