Cooperative Intelligent Real-Time Control Architecture for Dynamic Information Assurance (CIRCADIA)

Honeywell's Cooperative Intelligent Real-Time Control Architecture for Dynamic Information Assurance (CIRCADIA) technology automatically reacts to computer intrusions with tailored, autonomous real-time response to cyber attack.

Under DARPA and internal funding, Honeywell Labs has been developing the CIRCADIA system for active cyber defense. CIRCADIA leverages our experience in intelligent, real-time autonomous control, applying the Cooperative Intelligent Real-Time Control Architecture to cyber security.

CIRCADIA technology brings adaptive real-time planning and performance guarantees to cyber security. Rather than using brittle, hand-coded rules to respond to cyber attack, CIRCADIA uses on-line planning methods to automatically synthesize sets of reactions to cyber intrusions, and then executes those plans in real-time. CIRCADIA can derive appropriate responses for novel attack combinations, and it automatically trades off system security against service levels and accessibility. Thus CIRCADIA is uniquely self-aware of the potential for self-imposed denial of service, and is able to balance its security responses against the need for continuous mission performance.

CIRCADIA's three levels of automated intelligence were designed to meet the demands of real-time performance:

	The executive responds within scheduled deadlines.
	The controller synthesis module derives reaction plans and reaction deadlines from timed models of threats and actions.
	The meta-level controller manages computational resources and inter-agent coordination. Complete Closed Loop Cyber Control Solution

CIRCADIA has been interfaced to Honeywell's best-in-class Scyllarus intrusion detection system, to provide a closed-loop cyber security control solution. Under DARPA's Self-Regenerative Systems program, CIRCADIA and Scyllarus will be fully integrated as program name CORTEX, to achieve mission-aware computing security that continuously learns in order to adapt and reconfigure cyber defenses for new threats and changing mission requirements.

CIRCADIA leverages over ten years of research into intelligent real-time autonomous control with the CIRCA architecture, and adds significant extensions to handle partial observability and probabilistic information.