Low-cost strategy developed for curbing computer worms
January 13, 2009Thanks to an ingenious new strategy devised by researchers at University of California, Davis and Intel Corporation, computer network administrators might soon be able to mount effective, low-cost defenses against self-propagating infectious programs known as worms.
Many computers are already equipped with software that can detect when another computer is attempting to attack it. Yet the software usually cannot identify newly-minted worms that do not share features with earlier marauders. When network managers detect suspicious activity, they face a major dilemma, said Senthil Cheetancheri, who led efforts to develop the strategy. "The question is, 'Should I shut down the network and risk losing business for a couple of hours for what could be a false alarm, or should I keep it running and risk getting infected?'"
Cheetancheri, a graduate student in the Computer Security Laboratory at UC Davis when he did the work, has shown that the conundrum can be overcome by enabling computers to share information about anomalous activity. As signals come in from other machines in the network, each computer compiles the data to continually calculate the probability that a worm attack is underway. "One suspicious activity in a network with 100 computers can't tell you much," he said. "But when you see half a dozen activities and counting, you know that something's happening."
The second part of the strategy is an algorithm that weighs the cost of a computer being disconnected from the network against the cost of it being infected by a worm. Results of this ongoing process depend on the calculated probability of an attack, and vary from computer to computer depending on what the machine is used for. The algorithm triggers a toggle to disconnect the computer whenever the cost of infection outweighs the benefit of staying online, and vice versa.
The computer used by a person working with online sales, for example, might be disconnected only when the threat of an attack is virtually certain; the benefit she provides by continuing to work during false alarms far outweighs the cost of infection. On the other hand, a computer used by a copy writer who can complete various tasks offline might disconnect whenever the probability of an attack rises above even a very low level.
The study is published in "Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection, 2008," the proceedings of a symposium that was held in Cambridge, Mass., in September, 2008.
Source: University of California - Davis
Nov 10, 2009 |
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If implemented, who wants to bet that someone will come up with malicious code that causes false positives and triggers this protection code to pull machines off the network.
http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/risks
(Forum On Risks To The Public In Computers And Related Systems
ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator)
Once governments realize national security depends on software they will hopefully realize it's the way to go and will fund academic efforts aimed at reaching that goal. Don't count on software industry it's not in their interest to produce safe software that lasts.
Current computer technology is mature enough and there is no longer any need for operating system and software to change every few years despite what micro$oft and others who profit on this wants you to think. Current OSes provide everything applications need expect for one thing - security, frequent changes of software is one of the primary reason for poor security.
A properly written OS for business and government applications can easily last decades with only hardware, drivers and applications need to be updated if needed.
The world desperately needs an open, standardized, transparent and safe software platform and it will be developed sooner or later, its inevitable, but the likes of Microsoft will do everything to postpone it.