GADAPT: A sequential game-theoretic framework for designing defense-in-depth strategies against advanced persistent threats

Stefan Rass, Quanyan Zhu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

We present a dynamic game framework to model and design defense strategies for advanced persistent threats (APTs). The model is based on a sequence of nested finite two-person zero-sum games, in which the APT is modeled as the attempt to get through multiple protective shells of a system towards conquering the target located in the center of the infrastructure. In each stage, a sub-game captures the attack and defense interactions between two players, and its outcome determines the security level and the resilience against penetrations as well as the structure of the game in the next stage. By construction, interdependencies between protections at multiple stages are automatically accounted for by the dynamic game. The game model provides an analysis and design framework to develop effective protective layers and strategic defense-indepth strategies against APTs. We discuss a few closed form solutions of our sequential APT-games, upon which design problems can be formulated to optimize the quality of security (QoS) across several layers. Numerical experiments are conducted in this work to corroborate our results.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationDecision and Game Theory for Security - 7th International Conference, GameSec 2016, Proceedings
EditorsEmmanouil Panaousis, Milind Tambe, Tansu Alpcan, William Casey, Quanyan Zhu
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages314-326
Number of pages13
ISBN (Print)9783319474120
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016
Event7th International Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security, GameSec 2016 - New York, United States
Duration: Nov 2 2016Nov 4 2016

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9996 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Other

Other7th International Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security, GameSec 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew York
Period11/2/1611/4/16

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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