Application of artificial immune systems to computer security

Artificial Immune Systems can be developed to complement the functioning of conventional computer network security devices. Network security has always been a measure of how difficult it is to break into the network; the more difficult it is, the greater the security associated with the network. The ability to learn about previously unknown attacks and offer protection against them are features unique to the natural immune system. Artificial Immune systems, whose operation has been inspired by the natural immune systems, attempts to incorporate this ability in order to defend against zero day attacks. HAIS (Host-based Artificial Immune system), the solution that I have developed, provides data security similar to the natural immune system. It is adaptive and autonomous while ensuring that none of the files or programs gets destroyed in the process. It employs both Anomaly detection and Misuse detection methods. The HAIS solution is centrally controlled by an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit). It incorporates a Program Simulator block which tests to see whether a program that has been marked as anomalous is malicious or benign. If the program is malicious then the appropriate signature is added to the database while an interrupt is sent to the microprocessor to stop the program from executing any further. Thus the HAIS system reduces the number of false positives while also reducing the processing time.