Enhancing cybersecurity situation awareness through visualization: A USB data exfiltration case study

Employees who have legitimate access to an organization's data may occasionally put sensitive corporate data at risk, either carelessly or maliciously. Ideally, potential breaches should be detected as soon as they occur, but in practice there may be delays, because human analysts are not able to recognize data exfiltration behaviors quickly enough with the tools available to them. Visualization may improve cybersecurity situation awareness. In this paper, we present a dashboard application for investigating file activity, as a way to improve situation awareness. We developed this dashboard for a wide range of stakeholders within a large financial services company. Cybersecurity experts/analysts, data owners, team leaders/managers, high level administrators, and other investigators all provided input to its design. The use of a co-design approach helped to create trust between users and the new visualization tools, which were built to be compatible with existing work processes. We discuss the user-centered design process that informed the development of the dashboard, and the functionality of its three inter-operable monitoring dashboards. In this case three dashboards were developed covering high-level overview, file volume/type comparison, and individual activity, but the appropriate number and type of dashboards to use will likely vary according to the nature of the detection task). We also present two use cases with usability results and preliminary usage data. The results presented examined the amount of use that the dashboards received as well as measures obtained using the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). We also report user comments about the dashboards and how to improve them.

The process of truth disclosure: an assessment of the results of information during the diagnostic phase in patients with cancer

BACKGROUND

Surveys carried out in Mediterranean countries demonstrated very low rates of awareness of both diagnosis and prognosis among cancer patients. In our institution, a long-term training program aimed at improving communication skills among all physicians interacting with cancer patients was conducted. We report here the results of an extensive assessment of patients' awareness conducted after the first training period.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

In a 2-year period, after every first visit of patients with a histological diagnosis of cancer, oncologists elicited perception of the patients and completed a structured questionnaire focusing on the understanding of the diagnosis and prognosis. Our data are thus a photograph of the results of the informative process conducted during the diagnostic phase.

RESULTS

Among the enrolled 649 patients, 79.3% were aware of their diagnosis; factors significantly associated with higher levels of awareness were age younger than 70 and referral from surgery (versus internal medicine). Knowledge about the palliative or curative aims of future treatments (a surrogate sign of prognostic consciousness) was evident in 55.2%.

CONCLUSIONS

Compared with historical data, our results show a high level of comprehension of the diagnosis of malignancy, probably due to the extensive training effort together with the method chosen for assessment.

[Kinetics of anticoagulation in hemodialysis. Sequential study of single, intermittent and continuous heparinization]

A sequential real-time study was run to monitor plasma heparin values following three standard dose protocols during 4-hr dialysis, using an enzymatic method. One group of patients was given a single dose of 7000 IU at the commencement of dialysis, a second group 5000 IU at the start and 2500 IU at the end of the third hour, and a third group 2500 IU at the start and 1500 UI/hr for four hours. Plasma levels were checked every hour and ranged from 0.702 IU/ml (+/- 0.069) (start) to 0.290 IU/ml (+/- 0.079) (end) in the first group, 0.552 (+/- 0.116) to 0.312 (+/- 0.09) in the second, and 0.456 (+/- 0.113) to 0.314 (+/- 0.063) in the third. Correlation of heparin levels with coagulation time led to the establishment of an optimal range of 0.2 to 0.6 IU/ml.

["Clinical clearance" and "weekly clearance" of urea in periodical hemodialytic treatment]

Starting from the hypothesis that small molecules are freely diffusible, a simple formula is proposed for the determination of real ureic clearance during dialysis. This automatically allows for all variables (blood flow and flow of the dialysing solution, temperature, physical and/or chemical state of the membrane, level of solute concentration, transmembrane pressure, etc.). On the basis of this formula, a calculation system is also proposed for assessing weekly ureic clearance levels and hence the real efficiency of treatment. This system may also be applied to peritoneal dialysis and permits optimisation of substitutive treatment. It is thus easier to select the best filter and rhythms for each patient.