A Game Theoretic Perspective on Adversarial Machine Learning and Related Cybersecurity Applications

In cybersecurity applications where machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to detect vulnerabilities, a somewhat unique challenge arises as exploits targeting machine learning models are constantly devised by the attackers. Traditional machine learning models are no longer robust and reliable when they are under attack. The action and reaction between machine learning systems and the adversary can be modeled as a game between two or more players. Under well‐defined attack models, game theory can provide robustness guarantee for machine learning models that are otherwise vulnerable to application‐time data corruption. We review two cases of game theory‐based machine learning techniques: in one case, players play a zero sum game by following a minimax strategy, while in the other case, players play a sequential game with one player as the leader and the rest as the followers. Experimental results on e‐mail spam and web spam datasets are presented. In the zero sum game, we demonstrate that an adversarial SVM model built upon the minimax strategy is much more resilient to adversarial attacks than standard SVM and one‐class SVM models. We also show that optimal learning strategies derived to counter overly pessimistic attack models can produce unsatisfactory results when the real attacks are much weaker. In the sequential game, we demonstrate that the mixed strategy, allowing a player to randomize over available strategies, is the best solution in general without knowing what types of adversaries machine learning applications are facing in the wild. We also discuss scenarios where players' behavior may derail rational decision making and models that consider such decision risks.