SATORI: Understanding Operational Risk at System Scale
Modelling resilience across complex networks – without overcomplicating the solution
Overview
Seeing the bigger picture – before it breaks
As lead partner on the project, Actica Consulting brought deep cyber and Operational Technology (OT) expertise, shaping the operational context and use cases. Aeris-UK led the design and development of the simulation framework – building a prototype tool that reveals how disruptions cascade across complex, interdependent systems. Together, we enabled a new way to uncover vulnerabilities and explore smarter, system-level strategies for resilience – all without writing a line of code.
The Challenge
Spotting vulnerabilities in a sea of dependencies
Many OT systems are deeply interconnected – spanning communications, infrastructure, logistics and control. Yet risk analysis tools often treat these in isolation, overlooking how one failure can trigger another.
The challenge was to create a modelling framework that reflects real-world complexity – showing how different disruptions affect performance and resilience across the system. It had to support both technical and non-technical users, adapt across different domains, and help teams focus their mitigation efforts based on how systems really behave.
Our Approach
System-level insight, without the complexity
We developed a scenario-based modelling framework that allows users to map, simulate and analyse complex systems with minimal technical overhead.
Working closely with cyber and OT experts from Actica Consulting, we defined the structure and behaviour of representative systems – including their components, dependencies and risk profiles – and validated how different disruptions would play out in practice.
In SATORI, users build models visually using structured templates, then run simulations to test how different conditions affect performance and resilience. The system flags where risks concentrate and where mitigation is most effective – without needing users to hard-code behaviour or assumptions. Custom logic modules can be added where needed – but the core stays simple.
The Outcome
From system model to strategic foresight
SATORI shows how organisations can simulate thousands of event-driven scenarios and trace their effects through complex systems – revealing which combinations of failures, dependencies or delays posed the greatest risk.
In two contrasting environments – a distributed communications network and a production facility – the tool uncovered weak links, predicted bottlenecks, and highlighted simple interventions that could significantly boost resilience.
It helps teams shift from reacting to problems to designing them out altogether – enabling faster decisions, better resource use and greater operational confidence.
Acknowledgements
This project was funded by Defence Digital’s Cyber Resilience Programme through the Defence and Security Accelerator’s ‘Reducing Cyber Risk Across Defence’ Themed Competition.