Game Theoretic Modeling of Jamming Attacks in Ad hoc Networks

The objective of jamming attack in a network is to deny service to the communicating nodes, thus reducing network throughput and availability. In this paper, we propose a game theoretic framework for detecting jamming attacks in wireless ad hoc networks. We formulate jamming as a two- player, non cooperative game to analyze the interaction between attacker and monitoring nodes in the network. We propose hybrid detection strategies at the monitor node using cross-layer features for attack detection. We solve the game by computing the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium and derive optimal attack and detection strategies. Numerical results show that game theoretic analysis can be used to determine optimal steady state monitoring strategies to provide higher detection accuracy, while balancing the monitoring energy costs.