Share Viewer : development of a web application for displaying early warning threat reports

Abstract

This work was commissioned by Arctic Security, a Finnish cyber security company specializing in threat monitoring and early warning services. The company’s main products host a feature of creating threat observation configurations, which match network exposed assets to threats and vulnerabilities found via chosen threat observation feeds. These configurations are then used to generate threat reports which can be accessed either directly or set to be automatically forwarded to any chosen recipients with emails containing hyperlink to the report.

The goal of this project was to create a new tool for viewing browser-accessible threat event reports. Initially the new web application was just required to be a more modern alternative to the company’s pre-existing reporting tools. New requirements were however added during the iterative development process. One of these new specifications was the ability for the report receiver to be able to filter and sort the data they see and that configuration to be saveable so that it will be automatically used for subsequent reports received from the same source as well. Other new requirements were related to product identity, mobile support, smooth user experience, and data export. Besides these requirements, tight integration to the company’s main products and to the pre-existing codebase was also demanded.

Notable tools used were TypeScript, React, Sass, and Vitest. The work was based on iterative cyclical process of development, testing, and feedback. Though not strictly adhering to any development methodology, the used process can be seen as holding some similarities to Scrum, the Agile framework. Other guiding forces behind the work were the attempt to follow both the various best practices of modern web development as well as following the preset examples laid out by the company’s codebase and style guide.

The application was finished receiving satisfied feedback, ending up with more capability than was originally imagined. All the requirements were met, though some styling related matters were handled differently than originally visioned. The application will next be entering production and maintenance mode with the anticipation that even more new features may be added based on feedback from actual users.