A Novel Attack-and-Defense Signaling Game for Optimal Deceptive Defense Strategy Choice

Abstract

Increasingly, more administrators (defenders) are using defense strategies with deception such as honeypots to improve the IoT network security in response to attacks. Using game theory, the signaling game is leveraged to describe the confrontation between attacks and defenses. However, the traditional approach focuses only on the defender; the analysis from the attacker side is ignored. Moreover, insufficient analysis has been conducted on the optimal defense strategy with deception when the model is established with the signaling game. In our work, the signaling game model is extended to a novel two-way signaling game model to describe the game from the perspectives of both the defender and the attacker. First, the improved model is formally defined, and an algorithm is proposed for identifying the refined Bayesian equilibrium. Then, according to the calculated benefits, optimal strategies choice for both the attacker and the defender in the game are analyzed. Last, a simulation is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed model and to demonstrate that the defense strategy with deception is optimal for the defender.

A Cyber Deception Defense Method Based on Signal Game to Deal with Network Intrusion

“…Still, it is only a single-stage offensive and defensive game research, which does not match the dynamic evolution of network offense and defense. Hu et al [25] improved the previous work and proposed that the signal attenuation factor represents the change of defense signal function in different stages, guiding the selection of optimal strategy for multistage active defense. However, existing research still lacks a comprehensive analysis of the quantification of the benefits of offensive and defensive strategies.…”

Optimal Defense Strategy for Data Security Based on Improving Evolutionary Game Model between Heterogeneous Groups

“…Dingkun Yu et al (2015) divided the attack-defense sides into different types. A static Bayes based attack-defense game model was established to analyze the equilibrium and solve the problem that the behaviors of attack-defense are unknown to each other in reality [14]; 4) Research on the dynamic Game based on incomplete information [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. In view of the reality that the actions of invaders rely on network detection, Yongjin constructed a multi-stage network game model and designed an optimal network defense strategy selection algorithm combining non-cooperative game theory [16].…”

“…A static Bayes based attack-defense game model was established to analyze the equilibrium and solve the problem that the behaviors of attack-defense are unknown to each other in reality [14]; 4) Research on the dynamic Game based on incomplete information [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. In view of the reality that the actions of invaders rely on network detection, Yongjin constructed a multi-stage network game model and designed an optimal network defense strategy selection algorithm combining non-cooperative game theory [16]. Yang Yu et al (2019) proposed a network attack-defense game model based on multi-level asymmetric information of the Internet of Things system to determine an optimal defense strategy [18].…”