Investigating the application of moving target defenses to network security

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary design for a moving-target defense (MTD) for computer networks to combat an attacker's asymmetric advantage. The MTD system reasons over a set of abstract models that capture the network's configuration and its operational and security goals to select adaptations that maintain the operational integrity of the network. The paper examines both a simple (purely random) MTD system as well as an intelligent MTD system that uses attack indicators to augment adaptation selection. A set of simulation-based experiments show that such an MTD system may in fact be able to reduce an attacker's success likelihood. These results are a preliminary step towards understanding and quantifying the impact of MTDs on computer networks.