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Biologically inspired approaches to computer security

February 10, 2005

  • Date: February 10, 2005 
  • Time: 11:00 – 12:15 p.m. 
  • Location: Woodward 149

Professor Stephanie Forrest <forrest@cs.unm.edu> 
Department of Computer Science, UNM

Our software infrastructure confronts a situation increasingly similar to the challenges faced by living organisms in a biological ecosystem. Highly dynamic, complex, and hostile environments are placing new demands on computation. Using biology as an example, we can potentially change how we engineer software infrastructures by using principles such as adaptability, homeostasis, redundancy, and diversity.

The talk will illustrate how biological design principles are providing new insights and approaches in the field of computer security. The talk will emphasize recent results in automated diversity and using epidemiological approaches to understand and control widespread network-based attack.