Download Use Human Immune System based approach to

Use Human Immune System based
approach to tackle Security threats
Author: Siddharatha Joshi, Tech Mahindra Ltd
Current challenges
Security threat has always been there since the day man started walking on this planet. With
evolution, the avenues of threat and the methods deploys to breach security have been
changing.
In the olden days, the security breach could happen only through physical structures and
was aimed at stealing physical valuable items. In the digital age, the security breach is
aimed at breaking into the digital world. In this world, the most valuable item is information.
The information could be bank account details of persons, it could be new product launch
details of competition, and it could be Government policies. Ironically, the value of
information is many folds higher than that of physical assets.
Also, in the Physical world, the threat is often from the locals whereas in Digital Age, the
threat is from entire planet. Hence in Digital world, the horizon of threat is much wider and
the impact of security breach is much deeper.
Novel problems need novel approach and hence I propose to learn a few techniques from
nature to fight the threat of Security breach.
Learning from Nature
As a human being, we are very much vulnerable to diseases. The disease of interest for this
paper is - infectious diseases.
Infectious disease spread from
1. Person to person
2. Animals to person
3. Person to animals
There is a fixed pattern and flow in which the infectious disease spread and becomes
epidemic. It follows the chain reaction approach. The disease causing agents like viruses,
bacteria, fungi attacks everybody but makes the person with a vulnerable immune system as
their breeding ground. The infected person becomes their agent now and spreads the
disease further to the people with whom he comes in the contact.
Relation between disease and Security threat
Isn’t it the same way in which the security breaches happen? The hackers are attacking
every organization with a potential of valuable information but the organization that’s not
most vulnerable becomes there victim.
Understanding Nature’s Solution
Our body has devised a myriad of techniques in the form of Immune System to fight these
infectious diseases. This is precisely the reason why there is Human race still flourishing on
this planet though there have been numerous outbreaks of diseases.
When the body gets infected by a disease, the Immune system attacked the disease causing
agent in following steps
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Mobilize force to the infected organ
Prevent further progress of infection by sticking to the fungi/virus of the disease
Swallow up the invader
Release chemicals to kill the swallowed invader
Clean-up the debris from body
Rebuild if needed.
Learn and augment immunity so that next time, the body doesn’t get infected. This is
called Acquired Immunity.
Infants and children have very less acquired immunity and so are susceptible to infections.
Their acquired Immunity is augmented with the help of external forceful infection in a
controlled manner. We know it as Vaccination.
We can make use of this science of diseases to prevent Security threats.
How
Following should be the approach to prevent Security threats.
Identify the weak link:
The first step in building the Security System is to find the weakest link in the chain of
networks and applications. Instead of following the conventional approach of stakeholders
giving priority, we should run a mock security attack drill without alerting the stakeholders.
This is analogous to the vaccination approach.
During the attack, the pattern and flow of security breach from one system to other system is
noted. This flow represents the weakest link in the Security Design. The job at hand then is
to fix the weakest link first and then secure the entire system.
To fix the weakest link, we follow the technique used by our Immune system to kill infection.
Following table illustrates the co-relation:
Steps
1
Our Immune System
Mobilize force to the infected organ
2
Prevent further progress of infection
by sticking to the fungi/virus of the
disease
Swallow up the invader
3
4
5
6
7
Release chemicals to kill the
swallowed invader
Clean-up the system of debris
Rebuild if needed.
Learn and augment Immunity so that
next time, the body doesn’t get
infected. This is called Acquired
Immunity.
The Security System
Focus all efforts on the entry point of the
attack.
Close the security loopholes
On the basis of RCA done in step 2, use
predictive analysis to identify other systems
that have the same vulnerability.
Fix the security loopholes in all the systems
identified in Step 3.
Redesign the network, applications,
integration of applications if needed
Rebuild and redeploy the systems
The loopholes identified are put in the
Quality checklist for audit so that they do
not re-appear
Conclusion
There is a lot of emphasizes on learning from nature. There are dedicated institutes like
Biomimicry Institute that are completely focussed on understanding the techniques of nature.
The idea of implementing Human Immune system type Security prevention system is
currently researched in multiple universities and organizations. The References section has
links to 2 such research projects.
The Immune system has been successful for over millions of years in protecting Human race
from numerous outbreaks of deadly diseases. Hence a security system based on this
learning should be robust enough to fight the security threats.
References
Immune System Approaches to Intrusion Detection - A Review (ICARIS)
A Novel approach for Intrusion Detection