Security - a perpetual war: lessons from nature
It proposes a novel perspective for improving virtual world security by drawing from biological strategies, though it is conceptual and incremental in approach.
The paper analyzes analogies between internet security techniques like botnets and DDoS attacks and natural patterns in species, concluding that the security community should seek new offensive and defensive strategies inspired by nature.
For ages people have sought inspiration in nature. Biomimicry has been the propelling power of such inventions, like Velcro tape or "cat's eyes" - retroreflective road marking. At the same time, scientists have been developing biologically inspired techniques: genetic algorithms, neural and sensor networks, etc. Although at a first glance there is no direct inspiration behind offensive and defensive techniques seen in the Internet and the patterns present in nature, closer inspection reveals many analogies between these two worlds. Botnets, DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, IDS/IPSs (Intrusion Detection/Prevention Systems), and others, all employ strategies which very closely resemble actions undertaken by certain species of the kingdoms of living things. The main conclusion of the analysis is that security community should turn to nature in search of new offensive and defensive techniques for virtual world security.