Protecting Against Network Infections: A Game Theoretic Perspective

— Security breaches and attacks are critical problems in today’s networking. A key-point is that the security of each host depends not only on the protection strategies it chooses to adopt but also on those chosen by other hosts in the network. The spread of Internet worms and viruses is only one example. This class of problems has two aspects. First, it deals with epidemic processes, and as such calls for the employment of epidemic theory. Second, the distributed and autonomous nature of decision-making in major classes of networks (e.g., P2P, adhoc, and most notably the Internet) call for the employment of game theoretical approaches. Accordingly, we propose a unified framework that combines the N-intertwined, SIS epidemic model with a noncooperative game model. We determine the existence of a Nash equilibrium of the respective game and characterize its properties. We show that its quality, in terms of overall network security, largely depends on the underlying topology. We then...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: INFOCOM
• Authors: Jasmina Omic, Ariel Orda, Piet Van Mieghem
• Keywords: Communications, Epidemic, Game Theoretical Approaches, INFOCOM 2009, SIS Epidemic Model