JASK launches a new Heads Up Display for security operations centers
JASK, the provider of the industry’s first cloud-native SIEM platform, unveiled a first-of-its-kind Heads Up Display (HUD) for security operations centers (SOCs) based on cutting-edge scientific design principles and visualization concepts never before used in the cybersecurity industry.
Drawing inspiration from leading designers in science fiction and gaming as well as the latest user interface design concepts, the enhanced JASK ASOC platform offers maximal functionality on a single screen.
This update enables security teams to identify top-priority threats from millions of alerts and begin rapid investigations from the moment they enter the platform.
“Human centered design often appears to be an afterthought in the cybersecurity industry. SOC dashboards all look the same and require deep knowledge and steep learning curves to master. Nearly every interface you see today is actually created from variations on similar sets of open source code,” said Harlan Elam, lead product designer at JASK and former UI/UX designer at Blizzard Entertainment.
“What drew me to JASK was the opportunity to build a completely new and engaging UI – inspired by science fiction and VR gaming. Our goal was to deliver an incredibly functional and intuitive experience by investing significant time building relationships with analysts.
“The new data visualizations and product features are the result of great collaboration with our customers and we’re all extremely excited to see them track down threats more efficiently than anyone else.”
The new JASK ASOC platform design begins with the Insight Radar, a circular visualization that represents incoming alerts and events and draws the eye inward to where focus is needed first.
JASK correlates outer-edge records into an inner ring of signals (seen as a circular bar chart) and then leverages adaptive signal clustering to distill these down further into top-priority JASK Insights, seen as triangles. The right sidebar features charts giving additional information on what’s happening in the customer environment in real time.
The left sidebar offers a high-level look at top-priority components the analyst needs to track, including what Insights are outstanding, how many devices are involved and what threats are still active.
All of these visual components are designed to be actionable and tell a story in a small amount of visual space, enabling human analysts to make quick decisions on where to prioritize and launch investigations.
The JASK HUD takes inspiration from futuristic design concepts that are present in entertainment and gaming. In order to achieve usability with such a compact design, JASK also worked with data scientists and applied an arsenal of design principles such as the use of shape, color, light and movement to evoke subconscious meanings that make visualizations intuitive for security practitioners. These include:
- Dark design – As security teams spend long hours behind a monitor and working within their user interfaces, JASK has designed the ASOC platform for eye health by deploying a dark theme for night and daily browsing. This darker visual space puts a starker focus on other visual elements displayed on the screen.
- Bullseye layout – At the center of the screen, this design begins with a wide set of data on the outer ring and correlates it into more compact signals and Insights as it draws the eye inward to the most important information. Other cybersecurity solutions typically rely on a funnel shape, which quickly becomes unreadable with the vast amounts of data being processed.
- Color and shape variances – Much like traffic signals and signs evoke intuitive meanings, JASK deployed color and shape to convey unwritten meaning to users. Redder objects and shapes like triangles, for example, are used to signal urgency.
- Use of space – Leveraging sidebars and tables, JASK puts all the information users want to see first right on the homepage. Every word and visual component is intentional and actionable.
“According to customers and security leaders we’ve spoken to, balancing visualization of data and functionality is one of the greatest challenges in cybersecurity today. It’s extremely difficult to create a scientific visualization that is appealing but also keeps sight of the message it’s trying to send,” said Austin McDaniel, UI software architect at JASK.
“All of the elements in the JASK HUD are the result of tireless design interview and iteration. We worked closely with data scientists to ensure the visual design doesn’t cause our platform to lose its value and instead boosts its utility for analysts.
“The result is a design that offers the best of both worlds – it is delivering beautiful visualizations that are also supported with vast data, usability and purposeful design. We’re excited about the value this update is going to bring to JASK’s customers.”