An immune system for computersImagine that, every time a new strain of the common cold began to make its rounds, researchers at the Center for Disease Control had to race to find a cure for it. They would have to make sure that the cure worked properly for all sorts of people, and did not cause any allergic or other adverse reactions. The problem of distributing the cure to billions of people worldwide would be overwhelming. This scenario is clearly ludicrous -- we could not have survived as a species if we relied on a central agency to defend us against every disease. Yet this is precisely how we defend ourselves against computer viruses today! Time is running out on this approach, and a different alternative is sought. Rather than relying on a central authority to protect them from all ills, humans and other vertebrates carry around their own individual immune systems. The vertebrate immune system exhibits some remarkable properties, including [12]:
Phrased in this way, it is evident that these fundamental properties are desirable for computers as well. The remainder of this section describes how each of these functions are being implemented in our design of the computer immune system, and compares our implementation with Nature's implementation of the vertebrate immune system. At the end of the section, the various elements will be assembled into a complete sketch of the proposed computer immune system.
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