Earthquake Prediction: Analogy with Forecasting Models for Cyber Attacks in Internet and Computer Systems

Currently, security of the cyber space (computer networks and the Internet) is mostly based on detection and/or blocking of attacks by the use of Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS), according to (National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST SP80094], 2010). However IDPS lacks in security as it is based on postmortem approaches threats and attacks are identified and/or blocked only after they can inflict serious damage to the computer systems either while attacks are happening, or when attacks have already imposed losses to the systems (Haslum et al, 2008). On the subject of earthquakes, one can notice the same kind of limitation: once an earthquake has already begun, devices can provide warnings with just few seconds before major shaking arrives at a given location (Bleier & Freund, 2005), (Su & Zhu, 2009). In the cyber space context, intending to cover the deficiency of late warnings, predicting techniques have already been approached in a small number of studies for cyber attacks in the last few years (Pontes & Zucchi, 2010), (Haslum et al, 2008), (Lai-Chenq, 2007), (Yin et al 2004).