Network Security Situation Prediction: A Review and Discussion

The rapid development of information technology exposes peoples life and work to the network. While people are enjoying in sharing their resources in the convenient condition, network security issues have emerged. Instead of considering security of single device in the network, researchers have shown an increased interest to grasp the overall network situation as a big picture in order to create situation awareness which consists of event detection, situation assessment and situation prediction. As the highest level in situation awareness, Network Security Situation Prediction makes quantitative prediction of incoming network security posture based on historical and present security situation information. The purpose is to provide an informational reference to network managers for helping them in formulating and implementing timely preventive measures before the network is under attack. In this paper, the authors group the existing network security situation prediction mechanisms into three major categories and review each model in the aspect of its strengths and limitations. The authors conclude that adaptive Grey Verhulst is more suitable to be used in predicting incoming network security situation.