DEFENCE AND ATTACK IN CYBERSPACE

The Internet of Things, cloud computing, and other developing technologies are propelling the rapid development of cyberspace, which is becoming the fifth dimension of human activity. But as cyberspace security issues worsen, traditional defence strategies (like firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and security audits) frequently become vulnerable to attack and difficult to implement in the face of increasingly well-coordinated and intelligent responses to network attacks of all shapes and sizes.

The configuration features of systems are constantly changing as a result of the development and use of the diverse dynamic transformation approach, which increases the likelihood of vulnerability exposure. As a result, attacks are becoming more complex and expensive, which opens up new possibilities for turning around the unequal balance between defence and attack in cyberspace.

Why are the current defence measures insufficient to stop different sorts of attacks???

1. Vulnerability’s universality. It is impossible to completely avoid, detect, and eliminate vulnerabilities in static hardware/software components, systems, tools, environments, and protocols because to the limitations of technological capabilities and engineering expertise.
2. The simplicity of installing backdoors. It is simple to insert backdoors through product design chains, tool chains, manufacturing chains, processing chains, supply chains, service chains, and other links as a result of the globalization of the information industry.
3. The imbalance between offensive and defence. From an attacker’s point of view, all it takes is one exploitable weakness in the entire security chain to take down the system or cause it to malfunction. It also has a target space that is essentially unconstrained. They also possess the initiative to launch unexpected attacks at any time. Defenders must protect against both known and unidentified threats in all facets of the communication network and information system.
4. The architecture of cyberspace is unified like a gene. Cyberspace system architectures and technologies are uniform (e.g., use the same processor, operating system, office software and database). The ecological environment is extremely vulnerable because of their static, deterministic, and similar situational processes (such as system configuration, operation agreement, topology, and transport routes). It not only creates weakness and makes it simple to attack the backdoor, but it also makes it possible for the assault chain to continue and be successful for a considerable amount of time.

As a result, the biggest threat to communication networks continues to be cyber-attacks based on undiscovered system flaws and backdoors. In order to change the passive situation of being vulnerable to attacks and difficult to implement in cyber security, administrators are forced to change defence strategies and innovate defence mechanisms due to the inevitable occurrence of vulnerabilities and the limitations of perceived defence methods. Cybersecurity’s mobile target defence and mimicry defense-based dynamic defence rises in response to the right circumstances and circumstances.

Any new mechanisms ???

In light of the current precarious situation of the defender, the United States of America (U.S.A.) has recommended a revolutionary reform in cyber security called Moving Target Defense (MTD). It is expected to confuse the attackers by constant and dynamic modifications, so as to raise the cost, complexity and failure rate of the attack. Therefore, attackers barely develop effective attack methods against the target system in a limited time to improve the resilience and active defense capability of the target system.

Mimic Defense (MD), as a neoteric active defense technology in cyberspace, aims to improve the anti-attack capability of information devices through endogenous mechanisms of its construction. The core idea of MD is to organize multiple redundant heterogeneous functionalities to jointly handle the same external request Meanwhile, MD implements dynamic scheduling based on negative feedback among multiple redundancies to compensate for the security flaw in the current cyberspace.