Borg-like cybots may patrol government networks

(Credit: U.S. Department of Energy)

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has created software that uses colonies of borg-like cyberrobots it says will help government agencies detect and fend off attacks on the nation's computer network infrastructure.

The Ubiquitous Network Transient Autonomous Mission Entities (Untame) differs from traditional security software agents in that its cybot "entities" form collectives that are mutually aware of the condition and activities of other bots in their colony (PDF).

When these cybots detect network intruders, they communicate with one another, preventing cybercrooks from creating and using a diversion in one spot within the network to then break through in another.

"The cybots are an inherent part of Untame's software, designed to do cybersecurity," Joe Trien, a team leader from the lab's Computational Sciences and Engineering Division, said in an interview with the Daily Beacon. "Most enterprises have intrusion detection centers set up in key spots, but they don't communicate with each other. But a cybot is intended to work with other cybots, continue their mission, or regenerate when necessary so they can pick up where one left off" (PDF).

The U.S. Department of Energy commissioned the software, in response to criticism from Congress (PDF) over security lapses. It hopes for an "intelligent, self-healing, intrusion detection and prevention system" capable of real-time response and defense, one that can learn to avoid false positives and relieve human operators from sloughing through low-level alerts.

The concept of mobile, autonomous software is not one that commercial software developers have embraced, said Lawrence MacIntyre, who is also working on the project. "When you tell people you've got this software that roams, the first thing they think of is a worm," he said.

Trien says Untame is more analogous to the Borg from "Star Trek," only benign. Plus, it would be bound by mission directives to monitor and protect its assigned cyberinfrastructure--not assimilate humanity.

[yanchineseguy]

Let the assimilation and resistance jokes begin.

[SenorFrog]

So are we to assume that by using a acronym like UNTAMED and comparing them to the Borg, that even the PR folks at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory are divorced from reality and don't understand the limited IT understanding of Congress, the 'it tubes' guys?

It sounds like great tech and a positive way to use what is normally a method used by malware but come on, get off on the right foot please. You're not responding to brain surgeons.

[Chaos0922]

Isn't this how SkyNet begins?

[Art Dir]

Does this mean I'll get my own personal Summer Glau-bot arriving from the future soon?

[JohnPhoenix]

Yeah, this SkyNet, not the borg.

[tm_anon]

which time?

[tm_anon]

Who has the ability to turn off the security measure when there's a glitch in the system and it turns out that nobody can access the network because it's seen as a security threat?

[gggg sssss]

wasnt there a movie about that. Or maybe they might remeber HAL2000 and Dave

[kudzul33t]

This could be awesome technology but I keep thinking about I-Robot.

~ I was here ~

[Michichael]

*grin* Oooh, I look forward to playing with this stuff. Watch it find it's way into our nuclear facilities, somebody changes the passwords and holds the country hostage because nobody else can hack it. There's always a way through though - given enough time, anything can be hacked.

[SteamChip]

Yes, an unattended castle guarded only by dogs could eventually be breeched and overrun, but add a few human guards awakened by the barking, then pouring hot oil all over the hacker?s battering ram, then it will take a LOT more time to occur. Add a few sorties by the knights that finally awoke and throw in the relief army and the hackers may have to even call it a day and go home.

Eventually it becomes a matter of how clever the attackers and defenders are, and how many resources they have to field against each other.