A Coactive Approach to Moving Target Defense Command and Control

Most current computer network systems are configured to operate in relatively static configuration and structures. Once deployed such systems are often observed, probed, and carefully studied by attackers seeking potential vulnerabilities or entry points. The concept of Moving Target Defense (MTD) prescribes the design of advanced computer network systems that are capable of dynamically changing their configuration and structure in order increase the uncertainty and cost to attackers, while maintaining their functionality and availability to legitimate users.

Our research focuses on the design and implementation of a command and control (C2) framework for moving target defense management and coordination. The challenges of C2 for MTD are compounded by the fact that the system must remain observable and predictable to administrators and users while undergoing their dynamic changes. Our novel approach to command and control design relies on coactive emergence as an approach to the design of work methods for this distributed sensemaking task. Principles of organic resilience and semantically--rich policy governance are employed as a means of assuring effective and adaptive human--agent team response. Extensible APIs have been specially developed to facilitate the integration of additional MTD technologies.

In this poster we will introduce and describe our human--agent teamwork approach for the command and control of moving target defenses. The poster will describe the underlying concepts of the proposed C2 approach, and the design and implementation of a proof--of--concept demonstration framework that will be used as a testbed for future research on MTD C2 concepts and implementation strategies.