Cognitive-Maps Based Investigation of Digital Security Incidents

Investigation of security incidents is of great importance as it allows to trace back the actions taken by the intruders. In this paper we develop a formal technique for digital investigation based on the use of Incident Response Probabilistic Cognitive Maps. Three main issues are addressed here: (1) construction and extraction of plausible known attack scenarios, (2) construction of hypothetical scenarios and their validation using a logic-based formalism, and (3) selection of optimal counter-measures addressing the detected attacks.