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Title: Cyber Security Research Frameworks For Coevolutionary Network Defense

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1228072· OSTI ID:1228072
 [1];  [2]
  1. Missouri Univ. of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Several architectures have been created for developing and testing systems used in network security, but most are meant to provide a platform for running cyber security experiments as opposed to automating experiment processes. In the first paper, we propose a framework termed Distributed Cyber Security Automation Framework for Experiments (DCAFE) that enables experiment automation and control in a distributed environment. Predictive analysis of adversaries is another thorny issue in cyber security. Game theory can be used to mathematically analyze adversary models, but its scalability limitations restrict its use. Computational game theory allows us to scale classical game theory to larger, more complex systems. In the second paper, we propose a framework termed Coevolutionary Agent-based Network Defense Lightweight Event System (CANDLES) that can coevolve attacker and defender agent strategies and capabilities and evaluate potential solutions with a custom network defense simulation. The third paper is a continuation of the CANDLES project in which we rewrote key parts of the framework. Attackers and defenders have been redesigned to evolve pure strategy, and a new network security simulation is devised which specifies network architecture and adds a temporal aspect. We also add a hill climber algorithm to evaluate the search space and justify the use of a coevolutionary algorithm.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1228072
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-15-29293
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English