Logical Consensus for Distributed and Robust Intrusion Detection

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new logical consensus mechanism for distributed intrusion detection, enabling network agents to share Boolean opinions efficiently and robustly, even with sensor failures, ensuring rapid and reliable consensus.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel logical consensus algorithm that is both optimal in communication efficiency and robust against sensor faults, with proven global stability.

Findings

The proposed algorithm achieves fast consensus with minimal message exchange.

The robust design tolerates a specified number of sensor failures.

Application to intrusion detection demonstrates practical effectiveness.

Abstract

In this paper we introduce a novel consensus mech- anism where agents of a network are able to share logical values, or Booleans, representing their local opinions on e.g. the presence of an intruder or of a fire within an indoor environment. We first formulate the logical consensus problem, and then we review relevant results in the literature on cellular automata and convergence of finite-state iteration maps. Under suitable joint conditions on the visibility of agents and their communication capability, we provide an algorithm for generating a logical linear consensus system that is globally stable. The solution is optimal in terms of the number of messages to be exchanged and the time needed to reach a consensus. Moreover, to cope with possible sensor failure, we propose a second design approach that produces robust logical nonlinear consensus systems tolerating a given maximum number of faults. Finally, we show applicability of the agreement mechanism to a case study consisting of a distributed Intrusion Detection System (IDS).