Topology-Aware Software Assignment in Networked Systems

Abstract Cyberspace mimic defense has been proven to be a revolutionary defense technology that “changes the rules of the game” to ensure the security of cyberspace. However, the software diversity inherent in mimic defense technology may increase the difficulty in managing software executable binaries, especially when updating or debugging a software. In this paper, we study the problem of software assignment in a networked system to minimise the number of binaries generated by mimic compilers. Mimic compilers can help to generate functional equivelant software executables which exhibits diverse characteristics such as binary size etc. Theoretically the software assignment problem is equal to the traditional graph coloring problem. To guarantee network severity, we apply a Welsh-Powell-based Software Assignment (WPSA) algorithm to determine the number of binaries needed and the assignment of these binaries to hosts in a network. We conduct experiments on real world network topologies. Experimental results show that our algorithm can effectively reduce the number of binaries needed in networked systems.