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A Game Theoretic Approach to Strategy Determination for Dynamic Platform Defenses

Published: 03 November 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Moving target defenses based on dynamic platforms have been proposed as a way to make systems more resistant to attacks by changing the properties of the deployed platforms. Unfortunately, little work has been done on discerning effective strategies for the utilization of these systems, instead relying on two generally false premises: simple randomization leads to diversity and platforms are independent. In this paper, we study the strategic considerations of deploying a dynamic platform system by specifying a relevant threat model and applying game theory and statistical analysis to discover optimal usage strategies. We show that preferential selection of platforms based on optimizing platform diversity approaches the statistically optimal solution and significantly outperforms simple randomization strategies. Counter to popular belief, this deterministic strategy leverages fewer platforms than may be generally available, which increases system security.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      MTD '14: Proceedings of the First ACM Workshop on Moving Target Defense
      November 2014
      116 pages
      ISBN:9781450331500
      DOI:10.1145/2663474
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Publication History

      Published: 03 November 2014

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      Author Tags

      1. game theory
      2. moving target
      3. system diversity

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      MTD '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 9 of 16 submissions, 56%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 40 of 92 submissions, 43%

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      • (2024)Game Theory Applied to Deception in Network Security2024 International Conference on Computing, Internet of Things and Microwave Systems (ICCIMS)10.1109/ICCIMS61672.2024.10690784(1-5)Online publication date: 29-Jul-2024
      • (2023)Information Protection in Complexes with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using Moving Target TechnologyInventions10.3390/inventions80100188:1(18)Online publication date: 11-Jan-2023
      • (2023)A Reinforcement Learning Model to Adaptive Strategy Determination for Dynamic Defense2023 6th International Conference on Electronics Technology (ICET)10.1109/ICET58434.2023.10211957(1182-1186)Online publication date: 12-May-2023
      • (2023)Towards an Uncertainty-aware Decision Engine for Proactive Self-Protecting Software2023 IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing and Self-Organizing Systems Companion (ACSOS-C)10.1109/ACSOS-C58168.2023.00027(21-23)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2023
      • (2023)D3GF: A Study on Optimal Defense Performance Evaluation of Drone-Type Moving Target Defense Through Game TheoryIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2023.327874411(59575-59598)Online publication date: 2023
      • (2023)MultiRHMComputers and Security10.1016/j.cose.2022.102958124:COnline publication date: 1-Jan-2023
      • (2023)A Preventative Moving Target Defense Solution for Web Servers Using IptablesProceedings of the International Conference on Cybersecurity, Situational Awareness and Social Media10.1007/978-981-19-6414-5_11(191-205)Online publication date: 8-Mar-2023
      • (2022)IoDM: A Study on a IoT-Based Organizational Deception Modeling with Adaptive General-Sum Game CompetitionElectronics10.3390/electronics1110162311:10(1623)Online publication date: 19-May-2022
      • (2022)Job Completion Time Under Migration-Based Dynamic Platform TechniqueIEEE Transactions on Services Computing10.1109/TSC.2020.298921515:3(1345-1357)Online publication date: 1-May-2022
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