Network Game with Attacker and Protector Entities

Consider an information network with harmful procedures called attackers (e.g., viruses); each attacker uses a probability distribution to choose a node of the network to damage. Opponent to the attackers is the system protector scanning and cleaning from attackers some part of the network (e.g., an edge or a path), which it chooses independently using another probability distribution. Each attacker wishes to maximize the probability of escaping its cleaning by the system protector; towards a conflicting objective, the system protector aims at maximizing the expected number of cleaned attackers. We model this network scenario as a non-cooperative strategic game on graphs. We focus on the special case where the protector chooses a single edge. We are interested in the associated Nash equilibria, where no network entity can unilaterally improve its local objective. We obtain the following results: – No instance of the game possesses a pure Nash equilibrium. – Every mixed Nash equili...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: ISAAC
• Authors: Marios Mavronicolas, Vicky G. Papadopoulou, Anna Philippou, Paul G. Spirakis
• Keywords: ISAAC 2005, Matching Nash, Nash Equilibria, Nash Equilibrium