Presenter Information

Michael Fiske, Aemea InstituteFollow

Location

Online

Event Website

https://hicss.hawaii.edu/

Start Date

3-1-2022 12:00 AM

End Date

7-1-2022 12:00 AM

Description

Malware plays a critical role in breaching computer systems. The computing behavior of a register machine program can be sabotaged, by making a very small change to the original, uninfected program. Stability has been studied extensively in dynamical systems and in engineering. Our primary contribution introduces a computing machine that is structurally stable to small changes made to its program instructions. Our procedures use quantum randomness to build unpredictable stable instructions. Our procedures can execute just before running a program so that the computing task can be performed with a different representation of its instructions during each run. Our procedures are inspired by the Red Queen hypothesis in biology: organisms evolve using robustness, unpredictablity and variability to hinder infection. Another contribution expands the mathematical notion of stability to a cryptographic model with an adversary, and explains why structurally stable machines can be resistant to malware sabotage.

Share

COinS
 
Jan 3rd, 12:00 AM Jan 7th, 12:00 AM

A Cryptographically Stable Computing Machine

Online

Malware plays a critical role in breaching computer systems. The computing behavior of a register machine program can be sabotaged, by making a very small change to the original, uninfected program. Stability has been studied extensively in dynamical systems and in engineering. Our primary contribution introduces a computing machine that is structurally stable to small changes made to its program instructions. Our procedures use quantum randomness to build unpredictable stable instructions. Our procedures can execute just before running a program so that the computing task can be performed with a different representation of its instructions during each run. Our procedures are inspired by the Red Queen hypothesis in biology: organisms evolve using robustness, unpredictablity and variability to hinder infection. Another contribution expands the mathematical notion of stability to a cryptographic model with an adversary, and explains why structurally stable machines can be resistant to malware sabotage.

https://aisel.aisnet.org/hicss-55/st/cybersecurity_and_sw_assurance/2