Network Distribution of Security Policies via Ant-like Foraging Behavior

The amount of media time given to computer security breaches added to a general culture of emphasizing problems rather than solutions make it appear, in many ways, that researchers in computer security are loosing the battle against attackers. Furthermore, current trends tend to show that if novel approaches to solving security problems are not explored, things are likely to get worse, not better. A possible approach that may give security experts the upper hand requires them to examine the fundamental causes of security problems. Is it possible that our security woes exist primarily due to an antiquated approach to solving the problem? In this paper, we argue that the answer is yes: one of the fundamental weaknesses of our collective approach is the static nature of most security systems. We then suggest the use of counter-measures based on a more dynamic approach a la swarm intelligence. We concentrate here on the very important issue of security policy updates and show simulation results which demonstrate the potential of our approach.