CYBER DEFENSE NETWORK MANEUVER COMMANDER

Network Maneuver Commander (NMC) is a research project to develop a prototype cyber command and control (C2) system that maneuvers network-based elements preemptively, and to develop performance metrics to be used for the evaluation of cyber dynamic defense solutions. The Network Maneuver Commander addresses the gap area between active information operations & reactive information assurance defenses, by focusing on the introduction of artificial diversity of hardware platforms, operating systems, IP addresses and hypervisors. NMC also establishes metrics to determine the benefit of these defensive techniques. The goals of the research were to increase the investment an attacker must make to succeed, increase the exposure of an attacker to detection as the attacker is forced to out-maneuver target reconfigurations, increase the uncertainty of the success of the attack, increase the survivability in the presence of attacks, and to define metrics associated with cyber operations for dynamic defense.