Identifying Agile Security Patterns in Adversarial Stigmergic Systems

System adversarial communities appear to exhibit characteristics of natural agile systems, and enjoy an advantage as a result over static systems that are the focus of their attacks. A project started in graduate courses at Stevens Institute of Technology and currently pursued by the International Council on Systems Engineering Working Group on Systems Security Engineering works under the premise that security strategy will benefit by architectural patterns that are equally self organizing. To that end a pattern cataloging project is in process, identifying fundamental self organizing patterns that can explain the adversary operational modes and inform next generation security strategy. This article advances that pattern project by exploring and capturing the stigmergic communication employed by system‐adversarial communities according to the pattern project guidelines. This article first identifies the unique stigmergic pattern, explores its nuances, and presents it in a format identified by the pattern project. Then the stigmergic pattern is applied as a mold to analyze a series of three systems in an effort to regard each within a familiar context. Three adversarial systems, the Iraqi Insurgency, IED Networks and Cybercrime, were selected as prominent opponents that provide significant consternation to security experts. They are first identified as agile systems, per characteristics defined by the pattern project, then studied in the context of the stigmergic pattern.