Work

A Differential Game Approach to Decentralized Virus-Resistant Weight Adaptation Policy Over Complex Networks

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: Increasing connectivity of communication networks enables large-scale distributed processing over networks and improves the efficiency of information exchange. However, malware and a virus can take advantage of the high connectivity to spread over the network and take control of devices and servers for illicit purposes. In this paper, we use a susceptible-infected-susceptible epidemic model to capture the virus spreading process and develop a virus-resistant weight adaptation scheme to mitigate the spreading over the network. We propose a differential game framework to provide a theoretic underpinning for decentralized mitigation in which nodes of the network cannot fully coordinate, and each node determines its own control policy based on local interactions with neighboring nodes. We characterize and examine the structure of the Nash equilibrium, and discuss the inefficiency of the Nash equilibrium in terms of minimizing the total cost of the whole network. A mechanism design through a penalty scheme is proposed to reduce the inefficiency of the Nash equilibrium and allow the decentralized policy to achieve social welfare for the whole network. We corroborate our results using numerical experiments and show that virus resistance can be achieved by a distributed weight adaptation scheme.

Source: IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems

DOI: 10.1109/tcns.2019.2931862

Authors: Yunhan Huang, Quanyan Zhu

Institution: New York University

Language: English

Topic: Complex Network Analysis Techniques

Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Awards: G4859043436, CAREER: Game-Theoretic Analysis and Design for Cross-Layer Cyber-Physical System Security and Resilience, CPS: Breakthrough: A Meta-Game Theoretic Approach to Cyber-Physical Co-Design of Secure and Resilient Control Systems, CRISP: Type 1: Reductionist and Integrative Approaches to Improve the Resiliency of Multi-Scale Interdependent Critical Infrastructure