  Some argue that biologically inspired algorithms are the future of solving
difficult problems in computer science. Others strongly believe that the future
lies in the exploration of mathematical foundations of problems at hand. The
field of computer security tends to accept the latter view as a more
appropriate approach due to its more workable validation and verification
possibilities. The lack of rigorous scientific practices prevalent in
biologically inspired security research does not aid in presenting bio-inspired
security approaches as a viable way of dealing with complex security problems.
This chapter introduces a biologically inspired algorithm, called the Self
Organising Map (SOM), that was developed by Teuvo Kohonen in 1981. Since the
algorithm's inception it has been scrutinised by the scientific community and
analysed in more than 4000 research papers, many of which dealt with various
computer security issues, from anomaly detection, analysis of executables all
the way to wireless network monitoring. In this chapter a review of security
related SOM research undertaken in the past is presented and analysed. The
algorithm's biological analogies are detailed and the author's view on the
future possibilities of this successful bio-inspired approach are given. The
SOM algorithm's close relation to a number of vital functions of the human
brain and the emergence of multi-core computer architectures are the two main
reasons behind our assumption that the future of the SOM algorithm and its
variations is promising, notably in the field of computer security.
