Nicolas DELCOMBEL Thesis defense

In this thesis, we examined how virtual reality could contribute to assisting operators in cyber operation centers who are responsible for processing a large number of alerts within tight deadlines. To sort through these alerts, operators compare the behavior of the monitored system with its nominal behavior and must correlate numerous and diverse data. The 2D tools they currently have do not provide effective visualizations. They are limited by their difficulty in correlating data between multiple visualizations, and in representing the evolution of a system’s behavior over time. Therefore, we created a 3D visualization concept that overcomes these limitations. We developed an immersive prototype based on this concept, which we evaluated compared to 2D visualizations. The results show greater efficiency of our prototype in processing complex data, while allowing increased user engagement at the cost of additional physical effort and the inability to interact with traditional 2D tools in the virtual environment. We thus devised a concept for an immersive cybersecurity environment that enables the use of 3D visualizations while having access to conventional cybersecurity tools. We demonstrated that all the necessary software components for its realization are available and have begun combining them to create a limited but functional prototype.