Research on Optimization of Array Honeypot Defense Strategies Based on Evolutionary Game Theory

Leyi Shi, Xiran Wang and Huiwen Hou
Additional contact information
Leyi Shi: College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China
Xiran Wang: College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China
Huiwen Hou: College of Computer Science and Technology, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-21

Abstract: Honeypot has been regarded as an active defense technology that can deceive attackers by simulating real systems. However, honeypot is actually a static network trap with fixed disposition, which is easily identified by anti-honeypot technology. Thus, honeypot is a “passive” active defense technology. Dynamic honeypot makes up for the shortcomings of honeypot, which dynamically adjusts defense strategies with the attack of hackers. Therefore, the confrontation between defenders and attackers is a strategic game. This paper focuses on the non-cooperative evolutionary game mechanism of bounded rationality, aiming to improve the security of the array honeypot system through the evolutionarily stable strategies derived from the evolutionary game model. First, we construct a three-party evolutionary game model of array honeypot, which is composed of defenders, attackers and legitimate users. Secondly, we formally describe the strategies and revenues of players in the game, and build the three-party game payoff matrices. Then the evolutionarily stable strategy is obtained by analyzing the Replicator Dynamics of various parties. In addition, we discuss the equilibrium condition to get the influence of the number of servers N on the stability of strategy evolution. MATLAB and Gambit simulation experiment results show that deduced evolutionarily stable strategies are valid in resisting attackers.

Keywords: evolutionary game theory; array honeypot; multi-party game; bounded rationality; evolutionarily stable strategy; proactive defense; dynamic honeypot (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/9/8/805/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/9/8/805/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:9:y:2021:i:8:p:805-:d:531964

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().