Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Game Theoretic Framework for Software Diversity for Network Security

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Decision and Game Theory for Security (GameSec 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 12513))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Diversity plays a significant role in network security, and we propose a formal model to investigate and optimize the advantages of software diversity in network security. However, diversity is also costly, and network administrators encounter a tradeoff between network secu- rity and the cost to deploy and maintain a well-diversified network. We study this tradeoff in a two-player nonzero-sum game-theoretic model of software diversity. We find the Nash equilibrium of the game to give an optimal security strategy for the defender, and implement an algorithm for optimizing software diversity via embedding a graph-coloring approach based on the Nash equilibrium. We show that the opponent (i.e., adversary) spends more effort to compromise an optimally diversified network. We also analyze the complexity of the proposed algorithm and propose a complexity reduction approach to avoid exponential growth in runtime. We present numerical results that validate the effectiveness of the proposed software diversity approach.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Anwar, A.H., Atia, G., Guirguis, M.: Game theoretic defense approach to wireless networks against stealthy decoy attacks. In: 2016 54th Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control, and Computing (Allerton), pp. 816–821. IEEE (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Anwar, A.H., Atia, G., Guirguis, M.: It’s time to migrate! a game-theoretic framework for protecting a multi-tenant cloud against collocation attacks. In: 2018 IEEE 11th International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD), pp. 725–731. IEEE (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Anwar, A.H., Kelly, J., Atia, G., Guirguis, M.: Stealthy edge decoy attacks against dynamic channel assignment in wireless networks. In: MILCOM 2015–2015 IEEE Military Communications Conference, pp. 671–676. IEEE (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Anwar, A.H., Kelly, J., Atia, G., Guirguis, M.: Pinball attacks against dynamic channel assignment in wireless networks. Comput. Commun. 140, 23–37 (2019)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Borbor, D., Wang, L., Jajodia, S., Singhal, A.: Diversifying network services under cost constraints for better resilience against unknown attacks. In: Ranise, S., Swarup, V. (eds.) DBSec 2016. LNCS, vol. 9766, pp. 295–312. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41483-6_21

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. Casini, E., De Gaudenzi, R., Herrero, O.D.R.: Contention resolution diversity slotted aloha (CRDSA): an enhanced random access schemefor satellite access packet networks. IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun. 6(4), 1408–1419 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Chatterjee, B.: An optimization formulation to compute nash equilibrium in finite games. In: 2009 Proceeding of International Conference on Methods and Models in Computer Science (ICM2CS), pp. 1–5. IEEE (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Chen, X., Deng, X.: Settling the complexity of two-player nash equilibrium. In: 2006 47th Annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS 2006), pp. 261–272. IEEE (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Farzaneh, M.: Graph Coloring by Genetic Algorithm. https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/74118-graph-coloring-by-genetic-algorithm (2020), [MATLAB Central File Exchange. Accessed 12 July 2020]

  10. Garcia, M., Bessani, A., Gashi, I., Neves, N., Obelheiro, R.: Os diversity for intrusion tolerance: myth or reality? In: 2011 IEEE/IFIP 41st International Conference on Dependable Systems & Networks (DSN), pp. 383–394. IEEE (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Jensen, T.R., Toft, B.: Graph Coloring Problems, vol. 39. Wiley, New York (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Kiekintveld, C., Jain, M., Tsai, J., Pita, J., Ordóñez, F., Tambe, M.: Computing optimal randomized resource allocations for massive security games. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, vol. 1, pp. 689–696 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Kierstead, H.A.: Asymmetric graph coloring games. J. Graph Theory 48(3), 169–185 (2005)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  14. Larsen, P., Homescu, A., Brunthaler, S., Franz, M.: SOK: automated software diversity. In: 2014 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, pp. 276–291. IEEE (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Le Goues, C., Forrest, S., Weimer, W.: Current challenges in automatic software repair. Softw. Qual. J. 21(3), 421–443 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Le Goues, C., Nguyen-Tuong, A., Chen, H., Davidson, J.W., Forrest, S., Hiser, J.D., Knight, J.C., Van Gundy, M.: Moving target defenses in the helix self-regenerative architecture. In: Jajodia, S., Ghosh, A., Subrahmanian, V., Swarup, V., Wang, C., Wang, X. (eds.) Moving Target Defense II, pp. 117–149. Springer, New York (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5416-8_7

  17. Liva, G.: Graph-based analysis and optimization of contention resolution diversity slotted aloha. IEEE Trans. Commun. 59(2), 477–487 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Mangasarian, O.L., Stone, H.: Two-person nonzero-sum games and quadratic programming. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 9(3), 348–355 (1964)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  19. Moumen, A., Bouye, M., Sissaoui, H.: New secure partial encryption method for medical images using graph coloring problem. Nonlinear Dyn. 82(3), 1475–1482 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-015-2253-4

    Article  MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  20. Nash, J.F., et al.: Equilibrium points in n-person games. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 36(1), 48–49 (1950)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  21. Neti, S., Somayaji, A., Locasto, M.E.: Software diversity: Security, entropy and game theory. In: HotSec (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Roy, S., Ellis, C., Shiva, S., Dasgupta, D., Shandilya, V., Wu, Q.: A survey of game theory as applied to network security. In: 2010 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, pp. 1–10. IEEE (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Shacham, H., Page, M., Pfaff, B., Goh, E.J., Modadugu, N., Boneh, D.: On the effectiveness of address-space randomization. In: Proceedings of the 11th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pp. 298–307 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Sohn, S.: Graph coloring algorithms and applications to the channel assignment problems. In: Kim, K.J., Chung, K.-Y. (eds.) IT Convergence and Security 2012. LNEE, vol. 215, pp. 363–370. Springer, Dordrecht (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5860-5_44

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  25. Thiyagarajan, P., Aghila, G.: Reversible dynamic secure steganography for medical image using graph coloring. Health Policy Technol. 2(3), 151–161 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Wang, S., Wang, P., Wu, D.: Composite software diversification. In: 2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), pp. 284–294. IEEE (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Wartell, R., Mohan, V., Hamlen, K.W., Lin, Z.: Binary stirring: self-randomizing instruction addresses of legacy x86 binary code. In: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pp. 157–168 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Zhang, M., Wang, L., Jajodia, S., Singhal, A., Albanese, M.: Network diversity: a security metric for evaluating the resilience of networks against zero-day attacks. IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Secur. 11(5), 1071–1086 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

Research was sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory and was accomplished under Cooperative Agreement Number W911NF-19-2-0150. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the Army Research Laboratory or the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for Government purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation herein.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. US Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD, 20783, USA

    Ahmed H. Anwar, Nandi O. Leslie & Charles Kamhoua

  2. University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, 79968, USA

    Christopher Kiekintveld

Authors
  1. Ahmed H. Anwar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nandi O. Leslie
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Charles Kamhoua
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Christopher Kiekintveld
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ahmed H. Anwar .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Quanyan Zhu

  2. ISR, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    John S. Baras

  3. Electrical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Radha Poovendran

  4. New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Juntao Chen

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Anwar, A.H., Leslie, N.O., Kamhoua, C., Kiekintveld, C. (2020). A Game Theoretic Framework for Software Diversity for Network Security. In: Zhu, Q., Baras, J.S., Poovendran, R., Chen, J. (eds) Decision and Game Theory for Security. GameSec 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12513. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64793-3_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64793-3_16

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-64792-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-64793-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation