Intrusion Tolerance By Unpredictable Adaptation (ITUA)

Abstract : The ITUA project began with the research goals of using Byzantine fault-tolerant protocols to coordinate adaptation to attacks and exploring the use of unpredictability in adaptive responses to confuse and delay the attacker. These main factors distinguish the ITUA approach; 1) dynamic adaptation - intrusions cause charges in the system, and a survivable system must cope with these changes, 2) a defense-enabled application that has an application and mission specific defense strategy, and 3) defense enabling builds the defense in middleware, intermediate between the application and the networks and operating systems on which the applications run. The ITUA approach was to respond and adapt to the effects of a malicious attack while it is in progress. If the defense-enabled application continues correct processing in spite of the attached, the defense was considered to be successful. The report reviews the motivation for the project and its historical context, then summarizes the ITUA research goals, progress toward achieving those goals, and lessons learned from the research. The report offers some plans for future research and draws a conclusion.