conference paper

An analytic approach to cyber adversarial dynamics

Sweeney P.; Cybenko G.

Publication year: 2012
Source / journal: proceedings of spie - the international society for optical engineering
Country of origin: USA
Language: English
Authors’ affiliations: Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, 8000 Cummings Hall, United States
Import source: Scopus export

Abstract

To date, cyber security investment by both the government and commercial sectors has been largely driven by the myopic best response of players to the actions of their adversaries and their perception of the adversarial environment. However, current work in applying traditional game theory to cyber operations typically assumes that games exist with prescribed moves, strategies, and payoffs. This paper presents an analytic approach to characterizing the more realistic cyber adversarial metagame that we believe is being played. Examples show that understanding the dynamic metagame provides opportunities to exploit an adversary's anticipated attack strategy. A dynamic version of a graph-based attack-defend game is introduced, and a simulation shows how an optimal strategy can be selected for success in the dynamic environment. © 2012 SPIE.

Author keywords

adversarial dynamics, attack graph, game theory, information warfare

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