Network security supported by arguments

Argumentation has been proved as a simple yet powerful approach to manage conflicts in reasoning with the purpose to find subsets of “surviving” arguments. Our intent is to exploit such form of resolution to support the administration of security in complex systems, e.g., in case threat countermeasures are in conflict with non-functional requirements. The proposed formalisation is able to find the required security controls and explicitly provide arguments supporting this selection. Therefore, an explanation automatically comes as part of the suggested solution, facilitating human comprehension.