Multi-Player Evolutionary Game of Network Attack and Defense Based on System Dynamics

Pengxi Yang, Fei Gao and Hua Zhang
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Pengxi Yang: State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China
Fei Gao: State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China
Hua Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 23, 1-18

Abstract: We formalize the adversarial process between defender and attackers as a game and study the non-cooperative evolutionary game mechanism under bounded rationality. We analyze the long-term dynamic process between the attacking and defending parties using the evolutionary stable strategies derived from the evolutionary game model. First, we construct a multi-player evolutionary game model consisting of a defender and multiple attackers, formally describe the strategies, and construct a three-player game payoff matrix. Then, we propose two punishment schemes, i.e., static and dynamic ones. Moreover, through the combination of mathematical derivation with simulation, we obtain the evolutionary stable strategies of each player. Different from previous work, in this paper, we consider the influence of strategies among different attackers. The simulation shows that (1) in the static punishment scheme, increasing the penalty can quickly control the occurrence of network attacks in the short term; (2) in the dynamic punishment scheme, the game can be stabilized effectively, and the stable state and equilibrium values are not affected by the change of the initial values.

Keywords: network attack and defense; multi-player game; system dynamics; evolutionary game theory; bounded rationality; evolutionarily stable strategy; penalty strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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