Playing hide-and-seek: An abstract game for cyber security

TY - CHAP

T1 - Playing hide-and-seek

T2 - 1st International Workshop on Agents and CyberSecurity, ACySE 2014 - Held at AAMAS 2014

AU - Chapman, Martin

AU - Tyson, Gareth

AU - McBurney, Peter

AU - Luck, Michael

AU - Parsons, Simon

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - In order to begin to solve many of the problems in the domain of cyber security, they must first be transformed into abstract representations, free of complexity and paralysing technical detail. We believe that for many classic security problems, a viable transformation is to consider them as an abstract game of hide-and-seek. The tools required in this game - such as strategic search and an appreciation of an opponent's likely strategies - are very similar to the tools required in a number of cyber security applications, and thus developments in strategies for this game can certainly benefit the domain. In this paper we consider hide-and-seek as a formal game, and consider in depth how it is allegorical to the cyber domain, particularly in the problems of attack attribution and attack pivoting. Using this as motivation, we consider the relative performance of several hide and seek strategies using an agent-based simulation model, and present our findings as an initial insight into how to proceed with the solution of real cyber issues.

AB - In order to begin to solve many of the problems in the domain of cyber security, they must first be transformed into abstract representations, free of complexity and paralysing technical detail. We believe that for many classic security problems, a viable transformation is to consider them as an abstract game of hide-and-seek. The tools required in this game - such as strategic search and an appreciation of an opponent's likely strategies - are very similar to the tools required in a number of cyber security applications, and thus developments in strategies for this game can certainly benefit the domain. In this paper we consider hide-and-seek as a formal game, and consider in depth how it is allegorical to the cyber domain, particularly in the problems of attack attribution and attack pivoting. Using this as motivation, we consider the relative performance of several hide and seek strategies using an agent-based simulation model, and present our findings as an initial insight into how to proceed with the solution of real cyber issues.

KW - agent-based modelling

KW - cyber security

KW - hide-and-seek games

KW - search games

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84903589958&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/2602945.2602946

DO - 10.1145/2602945.2602946

M3 - Conference paper

AN - SCOPUS:84903589958

SN - 978-1-4503-2728-2

BT - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series

PB - Association for Computing Machinery

CY - New York

Y2 - 5 May 2014 through 5 May 2014

ER -