Prospect theoretic study of cloud storage defense against advanced persistent threats

Dongjin Xu, Yanda Li, Liang Xiao, Narayan B. Mandayam, H. Vincent Poor

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Cloud storage is vulnerable to Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), which are stealthy, continuous, well funded and targeted. In this paper, prospect theory is applied to study the interactions between a subjective cloud storage defender and a subjective APT attacker. Two subjective APT games are formulated, in which the defender chooses its interval to scan the storage device and the attacker decides its duration between launching two attacks under uncertain APT attack durations and action of the opponent, respectively. The Nash equilibria of the static subjective APT games are derived. We also study the dynamic APT game and propose a Q-learning based APT defense strategy for cloud storage. Simulation results show that the APT defense benefits from the subjective view of the attacker and the proposed defense strategy can improve detection performance with a higher utility.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2016 IEEE Global Communications Conference, GLOBECOM 2016 - Proceedings
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781509013289
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016
Event59th IEEE Global Communications Conference, GLOBECOM 2016 - Washington, United States
Duration: Dec 4 2016Dec 8 2016

Publication series

Name2016 IEEE Global Communications Conference, GLOBECOM 2016 - Proceedings

Other

Other59th IEEE Global Communications Conference, GLOBECOM 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityWashington
Period12/4/1612/8/16

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computational Theory and Mathematics
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

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