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A Biologically Inspired Immune System for Computers
Jeffrey O. Kephart
Published in Artificial Life IV, Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Synthesis and Simulatoin of Living Systems, Rodney A. Brooks and Pattie Maes, eds., MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1994, pp. 130-139
Abstract:
Computer viruses are the first and only form of artificial
life to have had a measurable impact on society.
Currently, they are a relatively manageable nuisance.
However, two alarming trends are likely to make computer
viruses a much greater threat. First, the rate at which
new viruses are being
written is high, and accelerating. Second, the
trend towards increasing interconnectivity and
interoperability among computers will enable
computer viruses and worms to spread much more rapidly
than they do today.
To address these problems, we have designed
an immune system for computers and computer networks
that takes much of its inspiration from nature.
Like the vertebrate immune system, our system develops
antibodies to previously unencountered computer viruses or worms
and remembers them so as to recognize and respond to them more
quickly in the future. We are careful to minimize the risk of an
auto-immune response, in which the immune system mistakenly
identifies legitimate software as being undesirable. We also
employ nature's technique of fighting self-replication with
self-replication, which our theoretical studies have shown to
be highly effective.
Many components of the proposed immune system are already being used to
automate computer virus analysis in our laboratory, and we anticipate that
this technology will gradually be incorporated into IBM's commercial
anti-virus product during the next year or two.
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