Network reciprocity shapes evolutionary cybersecurity dynamics

AI-assisted cybersecurity systems are characterised by continuous adaptation between attackers and defenders, making evolutionary game theory a natural framework for studying their long-term behaviour. However, existing evolutionary cybersecurity models have primarily focused on homogeneous interactions, providing limited understanding of how population structure influences cyber attack–defence dynamics. In this paper, we develop a mixed-role evolutionary game in which adaptive cyber agents can exhibit both offensive and defensive behaviours, and investigate its dynamics in well-mixed and structured populations. The proposed framework combines stochastic evolutionary analysis with large-scale agent-based simulations to examine how interaction structure shapes long-run strategic behaviour. Our results reveal a fundamental difference between global and local interactions. While well-mixed populations exhibit broad coexistence between attacking and defensive strategies, structured populations generate well-defined evolutionary regimes in which secure defensive behaviour becomes dominant over a much larger region of the parameter space. Spatial analysis further shows that neighbouring defenders naturally form resilient clusters that suppress persistent attacks through network reciprocity. These findings demonstrate that interaction structure is a fundamental determinant of AI-assisted cybersecurity evolution and suggest that organising defensive agents through local networked interactions can substantially improve long-term cyber resilience without requiring additional defensive incentives.