Games of Timing for Security in Dynamic Environments

被引:7
作者
Johnson, Benjamin [1 ]
Laszka, Aron [2 ]
Grossklags, Jens [3 ]
机构
[1] Carnegie Mellon Univ, CyLab, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
[2] Vanderbilt Univ, Inst Software Integrated Syst, 221 Kirkland Hall, Nashville, TN 37235 USA
[3] Penn State Univ, Coll Informat Sci & Technol, University Pk, PA 16802 USA
来源
DECISION AND GAME THEORY FOR SECURITY, GAMESEC 2015 | 2015年 / 9406卷
关键词
Security; Game Theory; Games of timing; Vulnerability discovery; ECONOMICS;
D O I
10.1007/978-3-319-25594-1_4
中图分类号
TP3 [计算技术、计算机技术];
学科分类号
0812 ;
摘要
Increasing concern about insider threats, cyber-espionage, and other types of attacks which involve a high degree of stealthiness has renewed the desire to better understand the timing of actions to audit, clean, or otherwise mitigate such attacks. However, to the best of our knowledge, the modern literature on games shares a common limitation: the assumption that the cost and effectiveness of the players' actions are time-independent. In practice, however, the cost and success probability of attacks typically vary with time, and adversaries may only attack when an opportunity is present (e. g., when a vulnerability has been discovered). In this paper, we propose and study a model which captures dynamic environments. More specifically, we study the problem faced by a defender who has deployed a new service or resource, which must be protected against cyber-attacks. We assume that adversaries discover vulnerabilities according to a given vulnerability-discovery process which is modeled as an arbitrary function of time. Attackers and defenders know that each found vulnerability has a basic lifetime, i. e., the likelihood that a vulnerability is still exploitable at a later date is subject to the efforts by ethical hackers who may rediscover the vulnerability and render it useless for attackers. At the same time, the defender may invest in mitigation efforts to lower the impact of an exploited vulnerability. Attackers therefore face the dilemma to either exploit a vulnerability immediately, or wait for the defender to let its guard down. The latter choice leaves the risk to come away empty-handed. We develop two versions of our model, i. e., a continuous-time and a discrete-time model, and conduct an analytic and numeric analysis to take first steps towards actionable guidelines for sound security investments in dynamic contested environments.
引用
收藏
页码:57 / 73
页数:17
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