On the Complexity of Sabotage Games for Network Security

Securing dynamic networks against adversarial actions is challenging because of the need to anticipate and counter strategic disruptions by adversarial entities within complex network structures. Traditional game-theoretic models, while insightful, often fail to model the unpredictability and constraints of real-world threat assessment scenarios. We refine <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sabotage games</i> to reflect the realistic limitations of the saboteur and the network operator. By transforming sabotage games into reachability problems, our approach allows applying existing computational solutions to model realistic restrictions on attackers and defenders within the game. Modifying sabotage games into dynamic network security problems successfully captures the nuanced interplay of strategy and uncertainty in dynamic network security. Theoretically, we extend sabotage games to model network security contexts and thoroughly explore if the additional restrictions raise their computational complexity, often the bottleneck of game theory in practical contexts. Practically, this research sets the stage for actionable insights for developing robust defense mechanisms by understanding what risks to mitigate in dynamic networks under threat.