System Survivability
System survivability is defined as “the capability of a system to fulfill its mission, in a
timely manner, in the presence of attacks, failures, or accidents (Linger, 2002).”
• The term system refers to any system. It’s used here in the broadest possible sense
from laptop to distributed system to supercomputer.
• A mission is a very high-level set of requirements or goals.
• In a timely manner refers to system response time, a critical factor for most systems.
• The terms attack, failure, and accident refer to any potentially damaging incident,
regardless of the cause, whether intentional or not.
Before a system can be considered survivable, it must meet all of these requirements,
especially with respect to services that are considered essential to the organization in
the face of adverse challenges. The four key properties of survivable systems are
resistance to attacks, recognition of attacks and resulting damage, recovery of essential
services after an attack, and adaptation and evolution of system defense mechanisms
to mitigate future attacks.
With the elevated risks in recent years of system intrusion and compromise, system
designers have recognized the critical need for system survivability that’s incorporated