Proactive Antifragility: A New Paradigm for Next-Generation Cyber Defence at the Edge

Recent advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) and, more generally, distributed computing research have given rise to various edge-oriented computing paradigms including Edge-, Fog-, and Mobile Cloud-Computing. Systems adhering to these paradigms exhibit a number of characteristics such as high levels of heterogeneity and dynamicity, leading to high complexity, that exacerbate the problems associated with traditional cyber defence. These problems are further exacerbated when edge-oriented systems operate in adversarial environments, e.g. the Internet of Battle Things (IoBT). Current generations of cyber defence approaches straddling attack prevention, detection, response and tolerance are arguably insufficient for edge-oriented systems operating in IoBT environments, especially given the constant increase in cyber attack sophistication. In this paper, we propose proactive antifragility as a new paradigm for the next generation of cyber defence approaches capable of taking into account the aforementioned system characteristics and environmental challenges. We propose a conceptualization of proactive antifragility, and then outline associated challenges and research directions indicating which existing approaches can be re-used or advanced/developed further in order for proactive antifragility to be achieved "at the edge".