Investigating the Application of Moving Target Defenses to Network Security

Published

August 15, 2013

Author(s)

Rui Zhuang, Su Zhang, Alex Bardas, Scott DeLoach, Xinming Ou, Anoop Singhal

Abstract

This paper presents a preliminary design for a moving-target defense (MTD) for computer networks to combat an attacker's asymmetric advantage. The MTD system reasons over a set of abstract models that capture the network's configuration and its operational and security goals to select adaptations that maintain the operational integrity of the network. The paper examines both a simple (purely random) MTD system as well as an intelligent MTD system that uses attack indicators to augment adaptation selection. A set of simulation-based experiments show that such an MTD system may in fact be able to reduce an attacker's success likelihood. These results are a preliminary step towards understanding and quantifying the impact of MTDs on computer networks.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Resilient Control Systems (ISRCS)

Conference Dates

August 13-15, 2013

Conference Location

San Francisco, CA, US

Conference Title

6th International Symposium on Resilient Control Systems (ISRCS)

Pub Type

Conferences

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1109/ISRCS.2013.6623770

Local Download

Keywords

moving target, adaptive security, network security

Citation

Zhuang, R. , Zhang, S. , Bardas, A. , DeLoach, S. , Ou, X. and Singhal, A. (2013), Investigating the Application of Moving Target Defenses to Network Security, Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Resilient Control Systems (ISRCS), San Francisco, CA, US, [online], https://doi.org/10.1109/ISRCS.2013.6623770, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=918925 (Accessed October 9, 2025)