An Attack-Defense Game Theoretic Analysis of Multi-Band Wireless Covert Timing Networks

We discuss malicious interference based denial of service (DoS) attacks in multi-band covert timing networks using an adversarial game theoretic approach. A covert timing network operating on a set of multiple spectrum bands is considered. Each band has an associated utility which represents the critical nature of the covert data transmitted in the band. A malicious attacker wishes to cause a DoS attack by sensing and creating malicious interference on some or all of the bands. The covert timing network deploys camouflaging resources to appropriately defend the spectrum bands. A two tier game theoretic approach is proposed to model this scenario. The first tier of the game is the sensing game in which, the covert timing network determines the amount of camouflaging resources to be deployed in each band and the malicious attacker determines the optimal sensing resources to be deployed in each band. In the second tier of the game, the malicious attacker determines the optimal transmit powers on each spectral band it chooses to attack. We prove the existence of Nash equilibriums for the games. We compare the performance of our proposed game theoretic mechanism with that of other well known heuristic mechanisms and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.