Ontology in information security

Abstract

The paper introduces and advocates an ontological semantic approach to information security. Both the approach and its resources, the ontology and lexicons, are borrowed from the field of natural language processing and adjusted to the needs of the new domain. The approach pursues the ultimate dual goals of inclusion of natural language data sources as an integral part of the overall data sources in information security applications, and formal specification of the information security community know-how for the support of routine and time-efficient measures to prevent and counteract computer attacks. As the first order of the day, the approach is seen by the information security community as a powerful means to organize and unify the terminology and nomenclature of the field.