IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jftint/v11y2019i3p65-d211202.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Game-Theoretic Analysis for Distributed Honeypots

Author

Listed:
  • Yang Li

    (College of Computer and Communication Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China)

  • Leyi Shi

    (College of Computer and Communication Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China)

  • Haijie Feng

    (College of Computer and Communication Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China)

Abstract

A honeypot is a decoy tool for luring an attacker and interacting with it, further consuming its resources. Due to its fake property, a honeypot can be recognized by the adversary and loses its value. Honeypots equipped with dynamic characteristics are capable of deceiving intruders. However, most of their dynamic properties are reflected in the system configuration, rather than the location. Dynamic honeypots are faced with the risk of being identified and avoided. In this paper, we focus on the dynamic locations of honeypots and propose a distributed honeypot scheme. By periodically changing the services, the attacker cannot distinguish the real services from honeypots, and the illegal attack flow can be recognized. We adopt game theory to illustrate the effectiveness of our system. Gambit simulations are conducted to validate our proposed scheme. The game-theoretic reasoning shows that our system comprises an innovative system defense. Further simulation results prove that the proposed scheme improves the server’s payoff and that the attacker tends to abandon launching attacks. Therefore, the proposed distributed honeypot scheme is effective for network security.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang Li & Leyi Shi & Haijie Feng, 2019. "A Game-Theoretic Analysis for Distributed Honeypots," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-19, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:11:y:2019:i:3:p:65-:d:211202
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/11/3/65/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/11/3/65/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dalal Hanna & Prakash Veeraraghavan & Ben Soh, 2017. "SDMw: Secure Dynamic Middleware for Defeating Port and OS Scanning," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-13, October.
    2. Mohammed Ahmed Ahmed Al-Jaoufi & Yun Liu & Zhenjiang Zhang, 2018. "An Active Defense Model with Low Power Consumption and Deviation for Wireless Sensor Networks Utilizing Evolutionary Game Theory," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-16, May.
    3. Kathryn Merrick & Medria Hardhienata & Kamran Shafi & Jiankun Hu, 2016. "A Survey of Game Theoretic Approaches to Modelling Decision-Making in Information Warfare Scenarios," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-29, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alessandro Fedele & Cristian Roner, 2022. "Dangerous games: A literature review on cybersecurity investments," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 157-187, February.
    2. Stefania Collodi & Maria Fiorenza & Andrea Guazzini & Mirko Duradoni, 2020. "How Reputation Systems Change the Psychological Antecedents of Fairness in Virtual Environments," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-17, August.
    3. Yufei Wang & Mangirdas Morkūnas & Jinzhao Wei, 2024. "Strategic Synergies: Unveiling the Interplay of Game Theory and Cultural Dynamics in a Globalized World," Games, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-25, June.
    4. Wen Jiang & Zeyu Ma & Xinyang Deng, 2019. "An attack-defense game based reliability analysis approach for wireless sensor networks," International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, , vol. 15(4), pages 15501477198, April.
    5. Zi-Jia Wang & Zhi-Hui Zhan & Jun Zhang, 2018. "Solving the Energy Efficient Coverage Problem in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Distributed Genetic Algorithm Approach with Hierarchical Fitness Evaluation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-14, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jftint:v:11:y:2019:i:3:p:65-:d:211202. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.