Security in autonomic computing

Over the last fifteen years the world has experienced a wide variety of computer virus and general computer security problems, against which a wide variety of countermeasures have been deployed. The record tells us that what most strongly determines the size and nature of the worldwide virus and security problem is not any particular countermeasure or security technology, but rather the characteristics of the underlying platform (the operating system, macro execution environment, and so on). Autonomic computing is a new effort, intended to make IT systems more self-managing. Since it undertakes to change the nature of the underlying computing platform, it is likely to change the size and nature of the world's virus and security problem as well. This paper briefly describes both the relevant historical record and some current architectural approaches to autonomic computing, and offers a few thoughts on how autonomic computing relates to computer security and virus prevention.