Network Security Games: Combining Game Theory, Behavioral Economics, and Network Measurements

Abstract

Computer and information networks are a prime example of an environment where negative externalities abound, particularly when it comes to implementing security defenses. A typical example is that of denial-of-service prevention: ingress filtering, where attack traffic gets discarded by routers close to the perpetrators, is in principle an excellent remedy, as it prevents harmful traffic not only from reaching the victims, but also from burdening the network situated between attacker and target. However, with ingress filtering, the entities (at the ingress) that have to invest in additional filtering are not the ones (at the egress) who mostly benefit from the investment, and, may not have any incentive to participate in the scheme. As this example illustrates, it is important to understand the incentives of the different participants to a network, so that we can design schemes or intervention mechanisms to re-align them with a desirable outcome.