Full Program
Summary:
Optimal allocation of defence resources is essential for minimising potential losses from cyberattacks particularly in complex multi-step attack scenarios. This paper proposes a resource allocation framework that identifies the optimal deployment strategy for defence resources under a fixed defence budget. The defender allocates resources in advance and the behaviour of the attacker is subsequently modelled using evolutionary game theory (EGT) to simulate adaptive attack strategies in response to the given defence configuration. Attack graphs characterise the multi-step structure of cyberattacks capturing the dependencies between different attack stages. EGT is used exclusively to model the evolution of attacker strategies at each step assuming that the defender's strategies remain fixed once deployed. The objective is to evaluate a set of feasible defence configurations and identify the one that minimises the expected total loss to the defender. A case study involving a simplified Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system demonstrates the applicability.Author(s):
Jinghan Zhang
City University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Wei Wang
City University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong