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Author(s):
Jeffrey Pawlick Edward Colbert Quanyan Zhu
Journal
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Abstract

Cyberattacks on both databases and critical infrastructure have threatened public and private sectors. Ubiquitous tracking and wearable computing have infringed upon privacy. Advocates and engineers have recently proposed using defensive deception as a means to leverage the information asymmetry typically enjoyed by attackers as a tool for defenders. The term deception, however, has been employed broadly and with a variety of meanings. In this article, we survey 24 articles from 2008 to 2018 that use game theory to model defensive deception for cybersecurity and privacy. Then, we propose a taxonomy that defines six types of deception: perturbation, moving target defense, obfuscation, mixing, honey-x, and attacker engagement. These types are delineated by their information structures, agents, actions, and duration: precisely concepts captured by game theory. Our aims are to rigorously define types of defensive deception, to capture a snapshot of the state of the literature, to provide a menu of models that can be used for applied research, and to identify promising areas for future work. Our taxonomy provides a systematic foundation for understanding different types of defensive deception commonly encountered in cybersecurity and privacy.

Concluding remarks
The next generation of cybersecurity and privacy techniques will leverage tools commonly employed by attackers for the purpose of defense. For applications ranging from protection of civill iberties to network security to defense of the Internet of Battle Things, defensive deception will play a principal role. We have developed a taxonomy of defensive deception for cybersecurity and privacy viewed through the lens of game theory. This taxonomy provides a scientific foundation for future defensive deception research and a common language that can be used to conceptualize defensive deception. This work also provides a menu of game-theoretic models and defensive deception techniques that can be leveraged for future research. Finally, we have summarized many of the contributions of game theory to the various species of deception over the past ten years. We hope that these will provide a conceptual basis for the next stage of research in defensive deception
in cybersecurity and privacy

Reference details

DOI
10.1145/3337772
Resource type
Journal Article
Year of Publication
2019
ISSN Number
0360-0300
Publication Area
Dual-use cybersecurity
Date Published
2019-08-30

How to cite this reference:

Pawlick, J., Colbert, E., & Zhu, Q. (2019). A Game-theoretic Taxonomy and Survey of Defensive Deception for Cybersecurity and Privacy. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3337772 (Original work published)