Panel #1: Visualization of Security (Symposium Summary)

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Panel Members:

Steve Dill, Lockheed Martin
Donald Robinson, Northrop Grumman
Ross Maciejewski, Purdue
Alok Chaturvedi, Purdue

Summary by Ryan Poyar

The first panel of the 2010 annual security symposium kicked things off to a great start and an interesting discussion. The topic was the Visualization of Security. The focus of the panel was to address the issue of how to use the vast amounts of data that is available in a way that can help predict and protect systems from future threats. Alok Chaturvedi, a professor at Purdue, initiated the discussion by describing how using visualization could potentially make it possible to display large amounts of data in a meaningful way. Donald Robinson from Northrop Grumman rationalized the use of using visualization with his argument that as humans we are naturally very good at recognizing patterns and making sense of visualizations as opposed to dealing with raw data. Currently, this technique is being researched through the project VACCINE (Visual Analytics for Command, Control, and Interoperability Environments) which is primarily focused on helping the mission of the Department of Homeland Security. As one of the researchers working on VACCINE, Ross Maciejewski described that the goal of the project was to be able to determine potential threats from an abundance of streaming real-time data sources and then further to provide real-time targeted counter measures against each threat. While all of (continue reading...)