Attack and Interception in Networks

Francis Bloch, Kalyan Chatterjee () and Bhaskar Dutta
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Kalyan Chatterjee: ` Pennsylvania State University

No 57, Working Papers from Ashoka University, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies a game of attack and interception in a network, where a single attacker chooses a target and a path, and each node chooses a level of protection. We show that the Nash equilibrium of the game exists and is unique. It involves a mixed strategy of the attacker except when one target has a very high value relative to others. We characterize equilibrium attack paths and attack distributions as a function of the underlying network and target values. We also show that adding a link or increasing the value of a target may harm the attacker - a comparative statics effect which is reminiscent of Braess's paradox in transportation economics. Finally, we contrast the Nash equilibrium with the equilibria of two variations of the model: one where nodes make sequential protection decisions upon observing the arrival of a suspicious object, and one where all nodes cooperate in defense.

Keywords: Attack; and; defense; Inspection; Network; interdiction; networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 47
Date: 2021-04-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth, nep-mic and nep-net
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
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https://dp.ashoka.edu.in/ash/wpaper/paper57_0.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Attack and interception in networks (2023)
Working Paper: Attack and Interception in Networks (2021)
Working Paper: Attack and Interception in Networks (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ash:wpaper:57

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