The human body is a very sophisticated organization. We have a built-in DNA system, which is pre-determined, and our chromosomes are pre-set. For this reason, our body's immune system has comprehensive knowledge of its components and elements. Our DNA systems do not need any future software updates to be added to our chromosomes database and DNA structure. Human chromosomes structure is formed and fixed at the time when our first cells were formed and created. To understand how our immune system works better, we can imagine a big and sophisticated organization that is built inside a castle! Thus, soldiers and guardsmen protecting the castle continuously monitor and check all the residents and people coming in and out of the castle with their database information. If a new person is detected within the castle and they don’t match with their list, they can easily identify and tell whether it is an enemy or just one of the normal residents.
This is exactly what happens inside our body and it is the main reason our immune system can easily detect and mitigate any new guests entering our body which is not listed on our DNA structure and start to mitigate it. The recent example we can mention is the COVID-19 known as Coronavirus. Although this is a new virus and we don’t have any solution to mitigate it yet, but our immune system can easily start fighting with it as soon as its development began.
However, this methodology is very different in computers since computer systems use a completely different approach. Computers don’t have a pre-determined DNA structure and also the behavior analysis of computer user keeps changing over time. Thus, in terms of the technology itself, we don’t have any computer system that works at least 60 or 70 years without need any software updates! For this reason, computers need to communicate with the outside world on a regular base to add new values and updates to their DNA structure.
Having said that, there will be two potential possibilities; One is the situation that the computer is completely disconnected from the outside world and it only allows users to run commands and get output results internally within the computer (i.e. personal calculators). Although this is the most secure possibility that the risk of viruses and malware getting into the system is almost close to zero. However, this situation will reduce the functionality of the systems extremely and it will affect the user experience by limiting the computer resources and applications.
The second possibility is the norm of today’s computers that can communicate to the outside world and they send and receive data from other sources. Each time you open and read a new email, a new bunch of data and information is downloaded into your computer system even without you notice it. Also, there are many different updates and new patches available for your computer components which the system will automatically download from time to time. Since both computer requirements and also user behavioral pattern is continuously changing, therefore, practically there is no fixed and pre-determined DNA structure for any computer systems to be compared with the potential threats to detect and possibly mitigate new and unknown cyber threats.
Nevertheless, by applying AI and advanced machine learning algorithms, it is possible to determine a ‘Temporary’ user behavioral pattern over some time. However, that temporary pattern is just an understanding of the machine from the day-to-day interaction of the user with the outside world. Thus, this temporary pattern cannot be used as a fixed and pre-determined DNA structure for the computer user since our behavioral algorithm is kept changing over some time and according to our needs. Besides it would be very easy to mimic this artificial DNA structure by applying behavioral analysis and deep learning algorithms to fool the systems by giving false inputs data under the right temporary DNA structure. As a result, the AI machine will be incapable of detecting and recognizing the bad traffic which can easily lead to serious security and data breach for organizations.
