Securing Multi-Domain Attacks: A Game Theoretic Approach

Modern systems integrate physical and cyber components in cyber-physical systems. The paper presents a novel security framework where multiple domains can be present and each domain can have multiple users or resources. We investigate the necessity for multiple domains such as cyber and physical domains to enhance the overall believability and effectiveness of defensive strategies. The paper also investigates the cost-benefit analysis of the security infrastructure using game theory while considering the actions of other users and their different potential losses from security breaches. Our model considers the potential collateral damage from an indirect attack and cross-side channel attack. Our research finds that an increase in the probability that the security infrastructure is compromised, given a successful attack on a user, may force the low profile users such as cyber domain participants to protect and thus increase the overall security to yield better outcomes to high profile users such as the physical domain participants. The paper investigates the relation between the total cost required to invest in security. The paper also presents numerous numeral results to gain important insights into our analytically characterized strategies.