What is the fortification problem?

Answer 1

The Fundamental Problem of Fortification is the name given to the concept of the advantages of Offense versus Defense. In preparing a defensive strategy, a business or country must account for all possible offensive tactics. The offensive party, on the other hand, only has to find one weakness.

The Maginot Line is a good wartime example of an extremely strong defense against Germans attacking from the German Border. Unfortunately for France, the Germans decided not to attack the wall directly, and it provided no protection against the German assault coming through the Ardennes forest and flanking the wall.

More modern uses of the Fundamental Problem of Fortification arise in the concept of server security. I read about a company (who I don't recall now) who wanted to test the efficiency of security. They bought the best of everything (firewalls, anti-virus, etc) to protect them and issued a challenge to the world to see if anyone could get through their security. I believe it took around fifteen minutes. Hackers and security are always walking step-in-step. The hackers will find a security flaw and exploit it. Security will then issue a patch to stop this flaw. The hackers will then find another flaw to exploit. As you can see, the defense is always reactionary, moving one step behind the offense. No matter how many holes are patched, the hacker only needs to find a single weakness.

Again, the defense needs to be impervious to all possible assaults from all possible angles. The offense only has to find a single weakness. Who has the advantage and will always win?