Discussion: strike back: offensive actions in information warfare
Proceedings of the 1999 workshop on New security paradigms
Code-Red: a case study on the spread and victims of an internet worm
Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Internet measurment
How to Own the Internet in Your Spare Time
Proceedings of the 11th USENIX Security Symposium
Predators: good will mobile codes combat against computer viruses
Proceedings of the 2002 workshop on New security paradigms
Measuring and Modeling Computer Virus Prevalence
SP '93 Proceedings of the 1993 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
A Sense of Self for Unix Processes
SP '96 Proceedings of the 1996 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
Comparing Passive and Active Worm Defenses
QEST '04 Proceedings of the The Quantitative Evaluation of Systems, First International Conference
| Hi-index | 0.00 |
Self-replicating code has become an unfortunate part of today's online environment. Viruses and worms have the ability to become pandemic within minutes of first release, and our protection systems are primarily reactive in nature. Thus, there is little or no protection from a new worm which uses a remote exploit in order to spread. Furthermore, such rapidly-moving threats have a documented ability to cause systemic outages; ultimately, such attacks may threaten the overall stability of the Internet itself.Currently, most exploits leveraged by worms have been well-known and easily solvable if the system maintainer had followed best security practices (e.g. deployed a firewall and/or carried out timely patching of vulnerabilities). Thus, actions which drive practitioners toward tighter security are likely to have a positive long-term impact on the overall stability of the global network.In this paper, we take the unusual position that low-level virus and worm outbreaks are highly beneficial to the overall goal of preventing catastrophic Internet failure. To illustrate this position we draw from a biological analogy: the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that within many natural systems it is a continual cycle of disruption which drives diversity... and hence stability and resilience. Finally, we conclude that the deliberate release of viruses and worms that are not threatening holistically may be a necessary approach to protect the Internet from catastrophic outbreaks. This position is supported by empirical evidence from the computer world and by further comparison with biological systems.