Moving Target

There are many mission critical systems that remains vulnerable to attacks from motivated and well-resourced hackers. Successful attacks on these systems are not a result of lack of effort or security measures. These successful attacks are simply a result of dedicated and talented attackers coupled with the inability of traditional security systems to completely protect systems. One of the ideas being investigated is moving target systems. The system, in its design and implementation, has the ability to analyze various treat levels and adapt to protect itself. This is made possible through its architecture and the ability to assess and re-orientate itself. Trusted Dynamic Logical Heterogeneity Systems (Talent) is the code name for such systems. Through its assessment, the system will migrate mission critical application across platforms in real time. This is made possible by the heterogeneity of it s architectural design. During its operation, the system can assess attacks and create and attack graph. This attack graph is used to decide which counter attack measures to implement. Base on these decisions, the system re-orientates itself, which can be achieved by switching from one platform to another (Okhravi, Haines, & Ingols, 2011).

This system has caught the attention of the White House’s Networking and Information Technology Development (NRTD). The NRTD has since sponsored a symposium that is to be held in Maryland in June. The report explains that the government from this symposium is hoping to develop the idea moving target security systems. Thus enabling security professionals with the ability to create, analyze and deploy evolving systems. Additionally, deploying systems with strategies that increase the cost and complexity for attackers consequently increases system resiliency and limit its vulnerabilities. The main goal is demonstrating with scientific proof that the moving target systems are indeed an improvement in cyber security. However there are hopes of talks surrounding dynamic network services, virtual machines, cloud computing, moving target transparency, end-to-end security along with other topics.

Sources

Okhravi, D. H., Haines, J. W., & Ingols, K. (2011, May). Achieving Cyber Survivability in a Contested Environment Using a Cyber Moving Target. High Frontier , 9.

See this link also

http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/24610/white-house-wants-feedback-on-moving-target-cybersecurity-techniques/