An Immunological Approach to Change Detection: Theoretical Results

  • Authors:
  • Patrik D'haeseleer

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • CSFW '96 Proceedings of the 9th IEEE workshop on Computer Security Foundations
  • Year:
  • 1996

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Abstract

This paper examines some of the theoretical foundations of the distributable change detection method introduced by Forrest et al., including fundamental bounds on some of its parameters. A short overview is given of the reasoning behind this method, its immunological counterpart and its computer implementation. The amount of information that is lost by splitting a data stream into unordered strings can be estimated, and this estimate can be used to guide the choice of string length. A lower bound on the size of the detector set is derived, based on information-theoretic grounds. The principle of holes (undetectable nonself strings) is illustrated, along with a proof of their existence for a large class of matching rules. The influence of holes on the achievable failure rate is discussed, along with guidelines on how to avoid them.