Knowledge of application context is used routinely in mobile
applications—for example sensing a user's context (e.g. location
and physical actions, time, etc), reducing network usage during
periods of inactivity and designing for users. But how does this
idea transfer to the server? I almost called this environmental
awareness, but didn't want to cause confusion with discussions
about network/server environments. By 'situational awareness' I
mean awareness of factors external to the application that might
be used to affect its behaviour. In my talk this week about
application intrusion detection, I will be discussing how an
aspect such as the general risk level to an
organisation/application might be used to alter an application's
actions (e.g. amount of logging, attack detection thresholds).
But this awareness, can be used beyond attacker detection and
response. Information is knowledge and additional awareness of
external factors can be used to control changes to the
application. An adaptive application can