User interface supporting an integrated decision engine for evolving defenses

A method comprising:

• communicating with a user interface by an operator, the user interface framework including a web service engine that allows users to interact and provide feedback on direction of an evolution of cyber-security defenses;
• providing feedback, by the operator, on the convergence direction of evolution used in a genetic algorithm search, allowing human input to better guide the search;
• influencing, by the operator, the search tradeoff between exploration and exploitation to more efficiently explore a region of the configuration space;
• and
• requesting, by the operator, specific changes to include the use of a specific defense or a restriction on modifying a network resource to be included in a next generation of the genetic algorithm search;
• accessing quantitative results about the currently explored defense configurations to identify the configuration with the highest security given a certain upper limit for cost;
• accessing the best configurations found so far and determine whether the search is explorative or exploitative;
• and
• providing interactive views of the genetic algorithm search data to the operator that enable the users to impart information to guide the search by the genetic algorithm.