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  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <issn pub-type="ppub">1613-0073</issn>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>Versatile Engine for Cyber Security Risk Analysis, Situational Awareness and Incident Response</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Stefano Solari</string-name>
          <email>stefano.solari@leonardo.com</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Umberto Pedrotti</string-name>
          <email>umberto.pedrotti@leonardo.com</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Enrico Castelli</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Gianluca Ceccoli</string-name>
          <email>gianluca.ceccoli@leonardo.com</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Alessandro Oneto</string-name>
          <email>alessandro.oneto@leonardo.com</email>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Enrico Russo</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Dynamic Risk Analysis</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Situational Awareness</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Cyber Threat Intelligence</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Cybersecurity Ontology</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Security</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Mechanisms</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Threat Propagation</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Kill Chain Generation</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Markov Decision Process</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Workshop</string-name>
        </contrib>
        <aff id="aff0">
          <label>0</label>
          <institution>DIBRIS, University of Genoa</institution>
          ,
          <country country="IT">Italy</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff1">
          <label>1</label>
          <institution>Leonardo SpA, Cyber and Security Solutions Division</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>PTI</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="IT">Italy</country>
        </aff>
      </contrib-group>
      <abstract>
        <p>In dynamic and regulated critical environments, continuously assessing cyber risks is essential for efective situational awareness and decision-making. While methodologies like Security Risk Analysis (SRA) and Threat Assessment and Remediation Analysis (TARA) provide structured approaches, they often lack dynamic updates, real-time threat modeling, and advanced visualization capabilities. This paper introduces Cyber-DRIVE, a novel framework for dynamic risk analysis, incident response, and situational awareness. By separating technological and business-critical asset models, Cyber-DRIVE enables cyber analysts to evaluate likelihoods and incidents, while business decision-makers assess the impact of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA) degradations. The framework integrates real-time Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), supports dynamic ”what-if” scenarios using MITRE D3FEND techniques, and provides advanced visualizations of complex infrastructures. Cyber-DRIVE addresses limitations in existing SRA and TARA tools by improving risk estimation accuracy, enabling faster response to changing threat landscapes, and supporting interoperability with Security Operations Centers (SOC) and orchestration platforms (SOAR). A case study demonstrates its applicability in modeling realistic infrastructures and evaluating cyber-attack scenarios.</p>
      </abstract>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
  <body>
    <sec id="sec-1">
      <title>1. Introduction</title>
      <p>(E. Russo)</p>
      <p>CEUR</p>
      <p>ceur-ws.org</p>
      <p>Cyber-DRIVE framework
Public ATT&amp;CK Framework
Public D3FEND Framework
Scored Public D3FEND Framework
concepts from ITSRM, most notably the separation between the technological (focused on systems and
infrastructure) and “primary” assets (focused on business-critical resources) models. This separation
enables a clear abstraction and segregation of roles and competencies between two user categories:
() cyber technology analysts, who estimate likelihoods and validate or reject hypotheses based on
detected indicators of compromise and attacks (and investigation when cyber incidents occur), and ()
business or process operations analysts, who understand the value of assets and estimate the impact of
Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA) degradation on those assets.</p>
      <p>Our approach aims to advance the capabilities of current SRA and TARA tools by enhancing risk
estimation accuracy, response times in case of model changes, and information updates on cyber threat
behaviors and used tactics and techniques. As a result, it enables the realization of risk management,
situational awareness, and decision support tools for a cyber response against security incidents by
interoperating with Security Operations Centers (SOC) and orchestration platforms (SOAR), and by
being fed with Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI). Moreover, it supports dynamic “what-if” evaluations of
active countermeasures based on techniques described in the MITRE D3FEND framework [7]. Finally,
it provides comprehensive visual representations of complex cyberspaces, including software-defined
networking, virtualization, and containerization.</p>
      <p>The main contribution of the paper can be summarized as follows.</p>
      <p>• We present the Cyber-DRIVE framework, designed for dynamic cyber risk identification, analysis,
and assessment.
• We define a flexible cybersecurity ontology and propagation rules, enabling the customization of
the framework as the core engine for a wide range of domain-specific Dynamic Risk Management
tools.
• We propose an asset modeling methodology that surpasses traditional dependency trees or graphs
used in classical SRA. It employs Markov Decision Process (MDP) modeling and optimization, with
transition probabilities automatically estimated using scores derived from the widely recognized
MITRE D3FEND framework.</p>
      <p>Paper Structure. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 presents related work. Section 3 details
our methodology. Section 4 describes our reference case study. Section 5 discusses our solution, and
Section 6 draws the conclusions.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-2">
      <title>2. Related Work</title>
      <p>Table 1 compares the Cyber-DRIVE framework against three mainstream RSA methods (i.e.,
MAGERIT/PILAR, FAIR, ITSRM) and features defined by the TARA metamodel.</p>
      <p>TARA methodologies use catalogs of Attack Vectors (AVs) to ensure consistent threat identification
and risk scenario definition. However, RSA tools often rely on fixed taxonomies, limiting adaptability
to evolving threats. Cyber-DRIVE addresses this by integrating the dynamic ATT&amp;CK Framework,
providing up-to-date representation of Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) for emerging threats.</p>
      <p>TARA methodologies use predefined Countermeasures (CMs) mapped to threats via consistent
catalogs. RSA tools rely on static taxonomies, limiting adaptability to specific contexts or new vulnerabilities.
Cyber-DRIVE improves this with the D3FEND Framework, ofering detailed and flexible countermeasure
mapping for better response planning .</p>
      <p>TARA methodologies rank AVs and CMs using scoring models based on risk and cost-efectiveness,
aiding decision-making. RSA tools rely on rigid lookup tables, limiting adaptability. Cyber-DRIVE
uses dynamic, context-aware scoring from the D3FEND Framework for flexible risk evaluation and
mitigation prioritization.</p>
      <p>RSA tools use static threat matrices, limiting efectiveness in dynamic cyber environments.
CyberDRIVE addresses this with real-time kill chain generation, modeling adversarial strategies to identify
likely attack paths and impacts for adaptive threat analysis.</p>
      <p>TARA methodologies and RSA tools use asset taxonomies to map TTPs to countermeasures, but
these mappings are often predefined and static. This requires manual updates to adapt to changes in
the threat landscape. Cyber-DRIVE automates this process by relying on a dynamic ontology based on
the D3FEND framework, ensuring flexible and consistent mapping of threats to countermeasures.</p>
      <p>RSA tools and TARA methodologies typically use static, predefined asset taxonomies that do not
account for the complexity of modern infrastructures. Cyber-DRIVE introduces a customizable asset
ontology, which allows for the modeling of diverse types of assets, including physical, logical, and
cyber persona assets. This flexibility supports the representation of complex infrastructures, such as
virtualized environments and containerized systems, while maintaining compliance with a baseline
ontology.</p>
      <p>RSA tools often rely on hierarchical or nested dependency models, which can oversimplify the
relationships between assets and their dependencies. Cyber-DRIVE improves this by introducing a
layered dependency model that distinguishes between technological and primary assets. This enables
more accurate modeling of how risks propagate through a system.</p>
      <p>RSA tools and TARA methodologies typically apply static risk scoring or weighted scoring models.
These approaches lack adaptability and are often insuficient for dynamically evolving cyber
environments. Cyber-DRIVE integrates dynamic scoring models derived from the D3FEND Framework,
improving accuracy and enabling real-time updates to reflect changing risks and vulnerabilities.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-3">
      <title>3. Methodology</title>
      <p>The architecture of Cyber-DRIVE consists of three basic components: () Knowledge Base (KB), an
ontology-based, fine-grained knowledge base containing models of user-defined ICT infrastructures
(extensible to other domains), () Kill Chains Generation (KGC), an optimization algorithm based on
Markov Decision Process (MDP) modeling, utilizing Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques [8], and
() Risk Extraction (REX), a risk calculation and aggregation procedure that utilizes the most likely
kill chains previously generated.</p>
      <p>Cyber-DRIVE evaluates potential cybersecurity attack paths in near real-time by leveraging the
D3FEND framework (which complements the ATT&amp;CK matrix) and extending its use through a
proprietary ontology stored in its KB. The KB enables the modeling of realistic ICT processing and
networking stacks, enriching the technological asset landscape with security mechanisms, measures,
and CVEs. Users can freely model their infrastructures while ensuring compliance with the baseline
ontology in the KB, which forms the foundation for accurate and explainable risk evaluations.</p>
      <p>During the KCG phase, the Cyber-DRIVE engine uses the enriched KB to generate adversarial kill
chains based on the most threat-rewarding paths. It propagates attack likelihoods from the technological
asset layer to the primary asset layer, projecting Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA)
degradation for primary assets.</p>
      <p>Finally, the REX phase then aggregates the results of the kill chain analysis, calculating the expected
levels of degradation (likelihood) and the impact for each cybersecurity risk dimension. This
process allows the system to provide actionable insights on residual risks and enable dynamic “what if”
assessments for exploring the efectiveness of mitigation solutions.</p>
      <sec id="sec-3-1">
        <title>3.1. Knowledge Base</title>
        <p>The Knowledge Base (KB) contains the user-defined model of technological assets and the corresponding
ontology, which guides model creation and validation. Technological assets are classified into physical
(e.g., servers, switches, devices), logical (e.g., OS, software, artifacts), cyber persona (e.g., credentials,
email accounts), or human world entities (e.g., administrators, end-users). The ontology is partially
proprietary (covering technological asset entities and their relationships) and partially standard, based
on the D3FEND Ontology Framework. Pertinence links connect D3FEND artifacts to proprietary
technological asset models, weighted to estimate the efectiveness of attack tactics/techniques and
the defensive resistance of D3FEND techniques. These scores feed directly into evaluating transition
probabilities for the MDP problem that generates the potential kill chains (see below).</p>
        <p>The KB also includes Security Mechanisms and Security Threats. Users can instantiate Security
Mechanisms to represent preventive, mitigative, or protective technologies defending specific assets.
These mechanisms establish “defends” relationships with technological assets, defining where and
how security measures can be applied, adding realism to “what-if” analysis. Additionally, Security
Mechanisms are modeled as implemented within technological assets, enabling the system to account
for risks afecting both the protected assets and the assets hosting the protective mechanisms. This
feature allows further research and potential algorithm extension to encompass cases where risk afects
technological assets that also implement in some way the Security Mechanism protecting other assets.</p>
        <p>Security threats justify the need for Security Mechanisms. These threats establish “attacks”
relationships with technological assets, parametrized using ATT&amp;CK tactics and techniques. This integration
ensures that the impact of Security Threats on the asset model is incorporated into residual risk
calculations, similar to the efects of cyber incidents.</p>
        <p>Finally, the KB allows users to adjust the relative importance of CIA dimensions for each primary
asset, enabling tailored risk assessments.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-2">
        <title>3.2. Kill Chains Generation</title>
        <p>The generation of adversary kill chains for risk evaluation is a key research area in cyber risk
management [9]. Our approach relies on a probabilistic attack path generation [10] obtained by preparing,
running, and solving an MDP model. The above kill chains are the results of optimal decision strategies
in a carefully crafted MDP space of states/actions.</p>
        <p>Using an MDP framework ensures eficient handling of the combinatorial complexity in large attack
path search spaces, provides a robust foundation for simulating cyber threat actions, and captures
the probabilistic and unpredictable nature of advanced threats like APTs. Its state/action abstraction
aligns with the logical movements of cyber threats in constrained environments. At the same time, its
reinforcement learning basis supports future research leveraging advanced AI techniques for improved
scalability and accuracy.</p>
        <p>Below, we introduce the overall procedure in terms of defining the input of the MDP problem,
representing states and actions in the MDP model, estimating probabilities in MDP transitions, and
defining the rewarding mechanism.</p>
        <p>Problem input. The MDP problem input is dynamically adjusted/updated according to the risk
evaluation setting. From the risk management perspective, it can reflect the need to evaluate CIA-based
risk values without any countermeasure (initial/baseline risk), with only default active countermeasures
(steady state risk), or otherwise triggered with additional countermeasures to assess Cyber Response
Options during Cyber Incident Response (residual risk).</p>
        <p>States. A state represents the levels and types of cyber threat advantage, i.e., the obtained foothold
over any technological asset of the target system landscape together with information flags . Flags
keep track of the status of the privilege escalation, persistency, and/or command and control capability
obtained from the technological asset. As realistic target infrastructures can have hundreds or even
thousands of technological elements, the Cyber-DRIVE framework avoids a possible combinatorial
explosion due to the state cardinality by properly segmenting the state representations encoding during
the optimization problem preparation.</p>
        <p>Actions. Actions in the MDP model represent adversary choices to transition between states,
expanding their attack path and/or increasing their threatening posture. These actions are encoded as threat
propagation rules, which define how adversaries explore and exploit realistic attack paths. Actions
originating from a specific state, such as a technological asset with a predefined compromise status like
Elevation of Privilege (EoP) or Command and Control (C2), can semantically correspond to TTPs, CVE
exploits, or malicious but system-legitimate activities (e.g., using stolen credentials to access otherwise
restricted services or data).</p>
        <p>Transition probabilities estimation. Each state/action transition probability is estimated via an
evaluation function that depends on the type of action.</p>
        <p>For action associated with an ATT&amp;CK Tactic or Technique, the approach is inspired by MITRE
recommendations for TARA methods [2, 4.2 Assessing Countermeasure Efects]. Briefly, these
recommendations surpass the characterization of countermeasures with a binary state (efective or it is not)
and classify their efects by type, i.e., detect, neutralize, limit, and recover, and by magnitude, i.e., low,
medium, and high.</p>
        <p>Building on this perspective, our approach develops and applies a more sophisticated cyber efects
model, fully leveraging the D3FEND ontology artifacts and, particularly, the existing relationship among
techniques and artifacts.</p>
        <p>For each technological asset  in the model, quantifying this interaction requires calculating the
Threat, Defense, and Mitigated Intensity Scores. To enable these calculations, we consider ( ) , the
set of artifacts pertaining to each asset. The integer-valued function   ( , artifact ∈ ( )) assigns
weights to artifacts based on their pertinence to the asset.</p>
        <p>To calculate the Threat Intensity Score   ( ,  ) for any attack technique  whose actions act on the
set of artifacts ( ) , the following formula is applied:
  ( ,  ) =</p>
        <p>[ ( ,  , ) ⋅   ( ,
where  ( ,  , ) represents the contribution of each action of technique  on the specific artifact
 , within the context of the technological asset  , namely the Threat Action Score. This score is a
framework-defined parameter estimated by experts, reflecting the relative severity of diferent attack
actions.</p>
        <p>To calculate the Defense Intensity Score  ( , ) for any defense technique  whose actions act
on the set of artifacts ( ) , the following formula is applied:
 ( , ) =
where ( , , ) represents the contribution of each action of defense technique  on the specific
artifact  , within the context of the technological asset  , namely the Defense Action Score. Like TAS, it
is a framework-defined parameter estimated by experts, reflecting the relative efectiveness of defense
actions.</p>
        <p>Finally, to calculate the Mitigated Threat Intensity Score    ( ,  , ( )) for any attack technique
 applicable to the asset  , and any set of given defense techniques ( ) acting on ( ) , the following
formula is applied:
   ( ,  , ( )) =
[(  ( ,  ) −  ( , )
) ⋅   ( , )
where   ( ,  ) is the Threat Intensity Score for technique  and  ( , ) is the Defense Intensity
Score for technique  , both evaluated for the specific artifact  within the context of the technological
asset  .</p>
        <p>The scheme of MDP transition probabilities is derived by normalizing the Mitigated Threat Intensity
Score at the graph level, which serves as the overall scoring function. This function estimates the
efectiveness of the given ATT&amp;CK Technique over the target Technological Asset  , while accounting
for the defensive resistance provided by the selected mitigations (( ) ) in the form of D3FEND
techniques.</p>
        <p>The MDP transition probability scheme is derived by normalizing the Mitigated Threat Intensity
Score at the graph level. This score serves as the overall function to estimate the efectiveness of a given
ATT&amp;CK technique on a target technological asset, while also considering the defensive resistance
provided by user-selected D3FEND techniques during the risk evaluation process. The numerical balance
is safeguarded through saturation functions (MAX, MIN) and standard normalization operations. This
ultimately contributes to estimating the transition probability distribution over MDP states reachable
from a given initial state, when a cyber threat action aligns with a specific ATT&amp;CK tactic or technique.
Although transition probabilities in the MDP problem are generated automatically, the framework
allows users to override these parameters for fine-tuning specific propagation rules.</p>
        <p>For actions associated with a CVE exploit, each MDP state/action transition probability is estimated
using an evaluation function based partially on the CVSS score system [11] and partially on
expertprovided data for new CVEs applicable to the technological asset landscape. Cyber-DRIVE mitigates
such exploits through CVE removal (e.g., patching or procedures linked to the CVE description), fully
counterbalancing the associated threat intensity score.</p>
        <p>For actions representing malicious but system-legitimate use, the transition probability is set to a
constant value between 90% and 100%, as these actions are inherently hard to detect and prevent due to
their legitimacy.</p>
        <p>Rewarding. The rewarding strategy of the MDP problem is designed to prioritize states where the
threat gains an advantage over technological assets that are linked to the user-defined primary assets
(see the Dependency model layer in Section 3.3). This approach ensures that the generated threat
strategies focus on degrading the CIA of technological assets, ultimately impacting the CIA dimensions
of the primary assets.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-3-3">
        <title>3.3. Risk Extraction</title>
        <p>This phase starts by post-processing the outcome of the optimization problem, which is an optimal
strategy in the threat advantage state space, to project it into a viable attack path in the technological
cyber terrain. During the risk extraction process, the paths originating from the assets declared in
the cyber incidents and terminating at the technological assets on which primary assets depend are
considered. These paths are derived from the optimal strategy generated as the solution to the MDP
problem, which is triggered by the active cyber incident information and the hypothesized set of
mitigation measures to be activated as input. During extraction, path probabilities are calculated
starting from the transition probabilities used for the MDP problem input.</p>
        <p>Other KPIs are gathered during the extraction process based on the attributes stored in each threat
action propagation rule, such as the stealthiness/detectability level and the CIA degradation likelihoods
for all the assets involved in the threat paths. In particular, the CIA degradation likelihoods are
considered for the technological asset at the end of the path, on which primary assets depend. These
likelihoods are multiplied by the overall path probability to compute the total CIA degradation likelihood
for each technological asset.</p>
        <p>The last steps of the processing are: () the projection and calculation to the primary asset CIA
degradation likelihoods through the dependency model layer, and () the application of risk formula
taking into account the primary assets CIA degradation likelihoods and the corresponding loss values.
Dependency model layer. We propose a dependency model that enables users to define logical
gates representing reasonable projections for the CIA dimensions. This solution applies not only
to Availability—–where AND and OR logic is straightforwardly interpreted and utilized to model
redundancy, recovery, and primary versus alternative dependencies–—but also to Confidentiality and
Integrity.</p>
        <p>The dependency model layer relies on three logical gates: AND, OR, and MAX. AND gates are
helpful for modeling single points of failure, where a direct degradation of one technological asset fully
propagates to the dependent primary asset. OR gates are suitable for redundancy modeling, where the
presence of alternative assets can mitigate the degradation of a single technological asset. MAX gates
are applied in scenarios where the maximum degradation among multiple technological assets defines
the impact on the primary asset.</p>
        <p>Risk formula. The key parameters required for risk calculation, which are assigned to each primary
asset, as well as the calculations for likelihood, impact, and risk evaluation, can vary depending on
the most suitable value modeling approach for the specific application. In Cyber-DRIVE, we chose
not to treat the value as an additive and potentially unbounded measure (as might be the case if a
value represents monetary amounts). Instead, Cyber-DRIVE adopts the concept of a consumable, finite
value measure, which is more suitable for addressing risks associated with assets such as technical
performance or operational capabilities. This approach benefits applications where additional
domainspecific impact models are applied downstream to Cyber-DRIVE. Examples include evaluating security
risks in embedded systems for cyber-physical systems or assessing mission risks and impact indicators
in the context of military operations planning.</p>
        <p>The Cyber-DRIVE framework evaluates primary asset risk through three components: input
parameters provided by the user, intermediate results bridging input to output, and final output parameters
summarizing overall risk.</p>
        <p>Input parameters are provided by the business-level user and ensure that the evaluation process
reflects organizational priorities and dependencies. Considering  ∈ {,  , } , the parameters include:
• 
•  -  
• 
•</p>
        <p>_</p>
        <p>, intrinsic total value assigned to the primary asset (  ).
_</p>
        <p>, value loss in case of  total loss for the primary asset (  ).
,</p>
        <p>, CIA relative weight (relevance) for the primary asset (  ).</p>
        <p>, likelihoods associated with technical assets.
•     _   ( 1, … ,    
of  degradation for technical assets (   1 , … ,     
through user-defined    or   gates with  , giving  
), processing of Cyber-DRIVE generated likelihoods
) involved in the cyber incident
 as output.</p>
        <p>The intermediate results are derived from the dependency model and input parameters to quantify
the likelihood and impact of degradation for each security dimension  ∈ {,  , } .</p>
        <p>, is the relative consequence (or impact) for any security dimension  . It represents the
proportion of the potential value loss for the primary asset due to the degradation of  , normalized by
the total value of the asset:
=
 -  

_  
_


asset ( 

_ 

_ 

,

 
for the primary asset (  ):</p>
        <p>is the likelihood of degradation for the security dimension  . Computed using the dependency
model, it aggregates the degradation likelihoods of all related technical assets ( 
based on user-defined gates (AND or OR):
is the overall risk for the primary asset ( 
). It is calculated by combining the relative
consequence and degradation likelihood for each security dimension  , weighted by their relative
importance. It can also be expressed as:
,
,
,
,

⋅ ( 
⋅ 

 =</p>
        <p>_ 
 combines the consequence ( 
,
 ( 
for the security dimension  , quantifying the expected degradation impact:
_ 
 =  
⋅  

The output parameters represent the aggregated consequences, likelihoods, and risks for each primary
) after processing the intermediate results. These are defined as follows:
aggregates  
across all security</p>
        <p>dimensions  , weighted by their
= ∑ 
= ∑ 


 

=

is the overall likelihood of degradation for the primary asset (  ). It is derived as the ratio
of the overall loss risk to the aggregated consequence:</p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-4">
      <title>4. Case Study</title>
      <p>To test and generate benchmark output data for Cyber-DRIVE, we modeled a ICT infrastructure using
the Cyber-DRIVE ontology, as shown in Figure 1, and simulated a realistic company network for
evaluation. Briefly, at the top of the diagram, a simulated Internet connection includes routers and
infrastructure services such as DNS servers. In the middle, the company backbone network connects
the DMZ, core infrastructure, and client areas. Each element in the diagram represents a technological
asset, which provides the functionality of primary assets, such as data or services that are targets of
risk calculation. These assets correspond to physical workstations or network devices. On top of these
physical elements, we modeled software components like operating systems, application software,
services, network interfaces, user accounts, and credentials. The Cyber-DRIVE ontology defines all
possible relationships between components and their attributes. For instance, attributes include trafic
type (e.g., user sessions, email, web), encryption level, storage information (e.g., local, cloud), and
authentication types (e.g., local, domain, two-factor).</p>
      <p>Kill chain of the modeled attack.</p>
      <p>We modeled an attacker sending an email containing malware to
an engineering user, who opens a malicious macro that downloads and persists a file from the attacker’s</p>
      <p>
        Cyber-DRIVE encodes these steps as follow: (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref>
        ) movement from a mail server software to the
computer system hosting it; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref11 ref2">2</xref>
        ) movement from the mail server to the client computer system that
receives the mail; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
        ) the malicious payload from the client is available in the mail software; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref4">4</xref>
        )
movement from the client mail software, the attached malicious file is downloaded onto the client; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref5">5</xref>
        )
on the client, the user executes a malicious file; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref6">6</xref>
        ) the client opens a reverse shell to allow C2C from an
attacker; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref7">7</xref>
        ) a port monitor is opened on the client to gain persistence; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref8">8</xref>
        ) connection from the client
to a remote SSH server sufering from a public CVE; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref9">9</xref>
        ) the SSH server authenticates as root user; (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref10">10</xref>
        )
the software running on the computer system stops working; (11) the software loses data.
      </p>
      <p>Table 2 represents the translation of the modeled kill chain into Cyber-DRIVE propagation rules. The
Propagation Rule and Description columns specify the rule and its concise description governing how
the attack progresses based on the interaction between the asset’s properties and the threat advantage.
The Tech Asset Type categorizes the afected assets (e.g., servers, clients, or specific software). It
can specify both the source and the destination assets. The Properties of the Technological Asset
column lists relevant characteristics of the asset involved in each action, such as trafic profiles, software
attributes, or storage types. Finally, the Threat Advantage State specifies the attacker’s pre-existing
threat advantages necessary to execute the step and the resulting advantage gained. In particular, we
specify a multi-attribute advantage state in terms of gained privilege level, obtained persistence, obtained
external communication (and command reception) capability, and obtained availability/readiness to
execute a payload.</p>
      <p>
        For example, step (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref1">1</xref>
        ) of the kill chain aligns with the propagation rule related to ATT&amp;CK technique
T1566.001 [12], involving a spearphishing attachment. This assumes an email with a malicious payload
is received by a mail server managing mailboxes, and the propagation rule makes the email accessible to
connected mail clients through standard mail messaging protocols via existing L3 network connections.
In this scenario, the rule represents a foothold movement without any immediate attacker advantage.
Step (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref11 ref2">2</xref>
        ) of the kill chain corresponds to a file download action involving the email client and the
operating system (“computer system”) handling the file. Step (
        <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="ref3">3</xref>
        ) reflects the technique T1204.002 [ 13],
where executing the file initiates infection. This step does not propagate to other assets but provides
the attacker with a foothold by enabling the payload, whose efects will propagate in subsequent steps.
      </p>
      <p>Moreover, Figure 1 illustrates the visualization capabilities of the framework. In particular,
CyberDRIVE highlights the expected attack path in red, identifying the client machine where the email is
received, the assets involved in lateral movements, and the final target system.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-5">
      <title>5. Discussion</title>
      <p>The Cyber-DRIVE framework achieves dynamic cyber risk management by integrating advanced
probabilistic modeling, ontology-based knowledge representation, and real-time adaptability. The
adoption of MDPs enables the dynamic generation of optimal kill chains by analyzing threat propagation
paths and incorporating evolving cyber incident data, hypothesized countermeasures, and KB inputs.
Furthermore, the dependency model layer facilitates the seamless propagation of risk impacts from
technological assets to primary assets, supporting real-time updates of risk metrics as new information
becomes available. This dynamic capability ensures that Cyber-DRIVE remains efective in scenarios
where rapid decision-making and adaptation are crucial.</p>
      <p>For risk analysis, Cyber-DRIVE leverages threat and defense intensity scores derived from the
stat-ofthe-art MITRE ATT&amp;CK and D3FEND frameworks. These scores are dynamically applied to evaluate the
likelihood and impact of attack techniques on technological assets. Resulting evaluations are projected
onto primary assets through the dependency model layer, mapping technical risks to business impacts
using logical gates (AND, OR, MAX). This feature ensures that the analysis bridges both technical and
operational perspectives.</p>
      <p>In terms of risk assessment, Cyber-DRIVE combines likelihoods and impact metrics through a
structured risk formula, producing clear and actionable insights for each primary asset. By supporting
“what-if” analysis, the framework enables users to evaluate the efects of mitigation measures and adjust
risk estimates in realtime. This capability ensures informed decision-making for efective and
costeficient incident response strategies. Moreover, it is worth noting that the framework fits the cognitive
needs of business process experts and decision-makers who focus on asset value and potential value
loss while abstracting the technological details of cyber threat propagation. These details are managed
by cyber protection service providers, ensuring that risk assessments bridge technical evaluations with
actionable business insights.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-6">
      <title>6. Conclusions</title>
      <p>This paper presents the development of the Cyber-DRIVE framework, guided by key requirements and
insights from RSA and TARA methodologies. The proposed methodology, with its potential applications
and functional components, demonstrates a robust approach to cyber risk management. A realistic case
study of a complex cyber-attack benchmarks the efectiveness of the kill chain generation approach.
These contributions position Cyber-DRIVE as a promising tool for advancing cyber risk management
by addressing the evolving challenges of cybersecurity in dynamic and critical environments.</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-7">
      <title>Acknowledgments</title>
      <p>This work was partially funded by the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP)
project “European Cyber Situational Awareness Platform” (ECYSAP) and the NextGenerationEU project
“Security and Rights in CyberSpace” (SERICS).</p>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-8">
      <title>Declaration on Generative AI</title>
      <p>The author(s) have not employed any Generative AI tools.
[11] X. Ou, S. Govindavajhala, A. W. Appel, MulVAL: A logic-based network security analyzer,
in: 14th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 05), USENIX Association,
Baltimore, MD, 2005. URL: https://www.usenix.org/conference/14th-usenix-security-symposium/
mulval-logic-based-network-security-analyzer.
[12] MITRE ATT&amp;CK, Spearphishing attachment, https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566/001/, 2023.</p>
      <p>URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566/001/, accessed on December 2024.
[13] MITRE ATT&amp;CK, User execution: Malicious file, https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1204/002/,
2023. URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1204/002/, accessed on December 2024.</p>
    </sec>
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