Digital Ants Used to Battle Internet Worms
Researchers are looking to change the face of cybersecurity by attacking internet worms before they infest networks and PCs. The idea is to take an offensive front by mimicking the behavior of ants, or rather, their ability to readily adapt to changing threats. The concept, called "swarm intelligence," enables "computer ants" to wander through computer networks looking for threats rather than remaining static, waiting for the offending intruder.
The swarm intelligence was developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington, and Wake Forest University, North Carolina. According to Window on Wake Forest, PNNL's Glenn Fink, Wake Forest's Errin Fulp and two graduate students conducted a study over the summer by introducing a worm into a network and then fine tuning the way the digital ants hunt down the invader. Fulp said that large networks are ideal for this type of defense, especially networks used by the government, universities, large corporations and more.
"Our idea is to deploy 3,000 different types of digital ants, each looking for evidence of a threat," explained Fulp. "As they move about the network, they leave digital trails modeled after the scent trails ants in nature use to guide other ants. Each time a digital ant identifies some evidence, it is programmed to leave behind a stronger scent. Stronger scent trails attract more ants, producing the swarm that marks a potential computer infection."
He also said that--unlike static anti-virus programs--digital ants do not consume large amounts of computer resources, nor do they require lengthy, process hogging scans. Because the digital ants adapt to malicious code variants, there's no need to an update; no need for background memory consumption. But unlike real-world ants, these virtual insects won't build a colony on the hard drive.
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Sounds really cool. I wonder if it will actually work like they hope?
What in the world? Is this a joke or what? Sounds like its a good idea at comprehensive intelligent antivirus but I have yet to hear a bout a "web-crawling" anti-virus yet....
Interesting. It should work quite well in theory (assuming how well Google's bots work, which is to say, quite well). Now only if some one could make an actual product using this tech.....
one would have to put quite a bit of trust into a company that releases these.. assuming they'd be allowed "crawl through" your firewalls and leave "cookies" all over your network.
I would be interested in seeing more info on this research.
I have my doubts knowing how things often pan out with over the self anti-virus programs and how they can barely measure up to every day threats when surfing even eBay much less any ware else. Not to mention the countless episodes of problems with mc afee causing problems with drivers failing to install or later become non-functional. Oh lets not forget about Norton it is no better than the filth it is supposed to keep out. Symantic (cringe) it is very non-entertaining when it blocks access to the internet, local network, and yet again problems with printers. So I think that this could just be another way for developers to get lazy with unoptimized code that increasingly wasteful on existing resources. Such practices have negated to a large degree of any advancement of new hardware. It should make one wonder when there are games like GTA IV that can even bring a CellBE cpu to it's knees.
Interesting concept.
I'll beleive it when I see it in action.
So how do you disable these ants? Do you send out some form of 'virus' to find these ants, and will they see that as a threat to turn them off?
But what do the ants do when they find the problem is the user.... BUAHAHA!
cool, I was waiting for this to happen - fight fire with fire.
hope what they say is true tho.
if there is one thing I hate more than having to install a resource hogging virus scanner, its having one infect my computer with out my consent!
Intelligent digital ants? Hive mind and sentience?
Awesomely Intriguing. Terrible Joke at the end.
hay ive seen this before.... terminator
Cyberdyne is coming >.< i can picture this as a way for a computer that gains awareness to control everything BWAHAHAHAHHAHA!!! if it protects my computer im all in... just hope that the Evil machines give me an opt in for slavery over annihilation... ower only hope is if theres two aware computers MAC VS PC WHO WILL WIN!!! ULTIMATE FANBOY MATCH AT 10!!!
yup they all join together and decide we are VIRUS !!!!
Wait until they turn on the Kernel, that's definitely one giant worm!
Finally something truly new in computer security.
Can someone say "Skynet"?
So how do you disable these ants? Do you send out some form of 'virus' to find these ants, and will they see that as a threat to turn them off?
Haven't you seen terminator yet??? Skynet is coming!
I believe you can disable it with a virus named jhon... which looks human... and has a gnarly scar on his face
O yes he has a pet ant.
This sounds like some Anime you'd see coming from Japan... Mecha Ants vs Pokemon/Digimon Worms...
I need to tell my little brother to stop watching tv in my room.. ughh!!
This concept is not new at all (maybe the application is). They use a method called Ant Colony Optimization (look for it in Wikipedia).
So this is strictly an intra-network thing for the foreseeable future? Sounds like a novel approach to antivirus and malware, wonder how well it would scale over the internet. Imagine if they could tag botnets as they cropped up.
How many ants does it take to get a DOS on your own machine? Sound like a load of tosh to me.
and then someone parasites the ants...
LOL
What if someone codes up an anteater?
Well, there is always the danger they will be overrun by the ants.
Don't worry though, they can bring in Chinese Needle Snakes to eat the ants.
And if the snakes become a problem, all they have to do is import snake-eating gorillas.
Yes... soon the ants will become self-aware, and we'll need to send a digital aardvark back in time to kill the ants!
All your code belong to us. Skynet in it's infancy.
The ants will too get out of control and they'll need to make the iCocroach, which will give way to the iWasp, then the iLizzard, then the iOwl...it'll never end until the Internet is destroyed by the iNukes. Only the iCocroach will survive.
Don't worry, if the Ants become self-aware and turn into Skynet, we can all just switch over to MACs. Its been proven, MACs don't get worms, viruses, Trojans, or even Ants.
Steve Jobs will be "John Connor". We must protect Steve Jobs or all is lost!!!
I prefer digital T-Rex myself