Strategic Coordination of Heterogeneous Resources for Attack Detection

Abstract

We study a two-player network inspection game in which a defender coordinates sensors with potentially heterogenous detection capabilities to detect attacks from a strategic attacker. We assume that there are multiple sensor types, each determined by its detected area coverage when placed at a location. The objective of the defender (resp. attacker) is to minimize (resp. maximize) the expected number of undetected attacks. We analytically characterize Nash equilibria of this zero-sum game in scenarios where there is no overlapping between sensors’ detection areas, and both players possibly perform randomized strategies. Building on this analysis, we introduce a new solution approach based on an efficient polynomial-time algorithm.