Defensive Cyber Maneuvers to Disrupt Cyber Attackers

Abstract

erimeter based defenses are limited in deterring and defeating cyberattacks. Multi-layered approaches are needed to provide robust cybersecurity and defend against Advanced Persistent Threats. Proactive defensive cyber actions can provide positional or temporal advantages over an adversary in the cognitive, technical, and physical domains. These actions comprise cyber maneuvers, which are implemented reconfigurations to a network that aim to make attackers more visible and detectable, impede attacker progress, and reduce attackers’ chances of mission success. Technical actions and response are the primary focus of most current cyber defense frameworks with little attention on adversary behavioral and cognitive effects. We describe the enhanced cyber maneuver framework which addresses cognitive and behavioral responses to cyber effects. We present experimental results that demonstrate the framework and a testing approach to collect supporting findings on the effects of cyber maneuvers.