NETE Resilient Multiculture Network Design in the Presence of Exploit-Triggered Correlated Failures

Abstract

Data networks are typically equipped with the
same hardware and software stacks. Correlated attacks
exploiting shared vulnerabilities at the nodes may result in
massive failures that disrupt network operation. In this paper,
multiple correlated failures that may negatively impact a
monoculture network are analyzed and a methodology to reduce
their effects is proposed. The proposed methodology consists of
introducing diversity into the network components by optimally
selecting both the number of different network nodes and their
locations within the network. First, an algorithm is proposed to
introduce node diversity in the topology considering nodes'
vulnerability indexes, which are associated with node vendors.
Next, two different optimal node placement algorithms are
proposed. The first algorithm aims to cluster nodes of the same
type to maintain network connectivity, while the second seeks to
maximize the network centrality metric to identify key nodes in
the network. Our results show that reliability can increase up to
50% when compared to a monoculture design.