Techniques for Parallel Execution in Vulnerability Assessment Studies

Technologies for parallel and distributed computation are at the forefront of software research. Vulnerability assessment studies model the interaction of a sortie - perhaps using several weapons - with a target. A single vulnerability assessment study requires the results from lhundres or thousands of independent attack scenarios wun with varying input parameters. Vulnerability assessments can be parallelized at two levels. First, it is possible to distribute the individual scenarios required to perform a single study across a network of computers. Distributing scenarios creates a need for coordination and load balancing. Second, the loop that generates the various simulated interactions can be parallelized using several different approaches. Parallelizing the code internally may require a considerable rewriting of an existing code or even the development of new techniques specific to vulnerability assessment. The overall goal of this Phase I research is to develop a recommendaiton concerning the most beneficial approach to speeding up vulnerability assessment studies. Two approaches will be considered: distributing the scenairos of th entire study and parallelizing the interactins within a scenario. Both approaches can be implemented using a variety of technfiques. During Phase I the various techniques will be evaluated and a recommendaiton for parallelizing vulnerability assessment studies will be developed. A limited software prototype that distributes scenarios across a network of workstations will also be implemented. The prototype will rovide experience with using distributed scenarios within a study. Provided that the distributed study can be implementd with a minimum of chnges to the underlying vulnerability assessment code, developing the distributed version will provide the mos immediate benefits of parallelizaiton across a variety of architectures with the least development time and cost.