Looking to nature to thwart cyberattacks

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Carnegie Mellon researchers are studying nature's defense mechanisms to help thwart cyberattacks on computer systems.

They are using an approach called cyberdiversity, which is a variation on the biodiversity found in ecosystems. In nature, diseases are most devastating when infections encounter monocultures, or swaths of genetically similar individuals, each bearing the same vulnerability to a germ's method of attack. Computer viruses exploit the same flaw on each computer running identical software.

"We are looking at computers the way a physician would look at genetically related patients, each susceptible to the same disorder," said researcher Mike Reiter at Carnegie Mellon University. "In a more diverse population, one member may fall victim to a pathogen or disorder, while another might not have the same vulnerability."