An Attacker-Defender Game Model with Constrained Strategies.

Area of Science:

• Network Security
• Game Theory
• Complex Systems

Background:

• Infrastructure attack and defense scenarios are critical areas of research.
• Existing methods often combine complex network theory and game theory.
• Previous studies have overlooked the impact of constrained strategies in complex situations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel approach for analyzing attacker-defender interactions by including constrained strategies.
• To develop a game model that incorporates the rule of constraints on strategies based on node distance.
• To evaluate the influence of these constraints on decision-making and Nash equilibria.

Main Methods:

• Defining a rule where strategy probability decreases with increasing average node distance.
• Establishing an attacker-defender game model with constrained strategies.
• Utilizing information theory to assess strategy uncertainty.
• Developing a solution method and conducting experiments on a target network.

Main Results:

• Constraints significantly influence the Nash equilibrium in attacker-defender games.
• Both attackers and defenders favor strategies with lower average distances when constraints are applied.
• The impact of constraints diminishes as the number of attackable or defendable nodes increases.

Conclusions:

• This research provides a new framework for understanding strategic interactions in infrastructure security by incorporating strategy constraints.
• The findings offer a novel perspective on infrastructure defense and attack dynamics.
• The study highlights how constraints shape strategic choices and equilibrium outcomes.