Markov modeling of moving target defense games
Date
2016-07-25
DOI
Authors
Maleki, Hoda
Valizadeh, Mohammad
Koch, William
Bestavros, Azer
van Dijk, Marten van Dijk
Version
OA Version
Citation
Maleki, Hoda; Valizadeh, Mohammad; Koch, William; Bestavros, Azer; van Dijk, Marten van Dijk. Markov Modeling of Moving Target Defense Games. Technical Report BU-CS-TR 2016-007, Computer Science Department, Boston University, July 25, 2016.
Abstract
We introduce a Markov-model-based framework for Moving Target Defense (MTD) analysis. The framework allows modeling of broad range of MTD strategies, provides general theorems about how the probability of a successful adversary defeating an MTD strategy is related to the amount of time/cost spent by the adversary, and shows how a multi-level composition of MTD strategies can be analyzed by a straightforward combination of the analysis for each one of these strategies. Within the proposed framework we define the concept of security capacity which measures the strength or effectiveness of an MTD strategy: the security capacity depends on MTD specific parameters and more general system parameters. We apply our framework to two concrete MTD strategies.