Precluding Emerging Threats from Cyberspace: An Autonomic Administrative Approach

Information Technology and Network Security Managers face several challenges in securing their organization’s network due to the increased sophistication of attacks. Besides, the number of attacks and vulnerabilities are rising due to the inability of the existing intrusion detection and prevention system to detect and prevent novel attacks. Hence, intrusion detection systems which were previously adequate to wedge the evolving attacks in cyberspace have become ineffective in impeding these attacks. Consequently, intrusion detection and prevention systems are required to actually prevent attacks before they cause harm. A major consideration of this work is to present an architecture that provides protection through the self-healing and self-protecting properties of the autonomic computing. The proposed system which operates by means of autonomous agents is based on risk assessment. The application of risk analysis and assessment reduces the number of false-positive alarms. Furthermore, the system autonomous features enables it to automatically diagnose, detect and respond to disruptions, actively adapt to changing environments, monitor and tune resources, as well as anticipate and provide protection against imminent threats.