Indirect reciprocity game modelling for secure wireless networks

Abstract

We formulate the wireless security problem as an indirect reciprocity game, and propose a security mechanism that applies the indirect reciprocity principle to suppress attacks in wireless networks. In this system, a large number of nodes cooperate to reject the network access requests from attackers during the punishment periods. If the punishment time is so long that the cost due to the loss of network services exceeds the illegal security gains of the attack, rational nodes do not have incentive to attack, and hence our system can reduce the attacking probability in the network. We develop a social norm and reputation updating process to build such an indirect reciprocity mechanism for the network. We evaluate the evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) in the game, and provide the optimal action strategy and its corresponding stationary reputation distribution. Our system is robust against collusion attacks, and can significantly reduce the attacking rate for a wide range of attacks. Simulation results show that our system has much better security performance than the direct reciprocity mechanism, especially in the large-scale wireless network with terminal mobility. Our system can be applied to many wireless networks including cognitive radio networks to improve their security performance.