Information Assurance

8.5. Tuning the Game Parameters

The stochastic game model presented in the previous section is based on a reward and cost concept. As discussed in Section 8.3, these values will represent the attacker’s motivation when deciding on attack actions. Whenever an attacker performs an attack action, he or she immediately receives a reward. Furthermore, if the action succeeds, additional rewards may be gained. We use negative rewards (i.e., costs) to make room for the possibility that attackers may be risk averse. The cost of a detected action will be an important demotivating factor when modeling, for example, insiders; legitimate users who override their current privileges. Similarly, commercial adversaries would lose reputation and market share if ...