Attack Deterrence Research Articles

Navigating the digital currency landscape: A comprehensive examination from blockchain foundations to website security

This paper offers an exhaustive exploration of the burgeoning digital currency realm, spanning from the foundational tenets of blockchain technology to the evaluation of pivotal website security vulnerabilities. The rise of decentralized cryptocurrencies, anchored in pioneering cryptography and consensus protocols, has deeply transformed traditional financial interactions. However, this transformation brings to the forefront new cybersecurity risks, borne from the intricate nature of these systems. Addressing these imminent challenges, the study introduces a holistic security model, meticulously designed for the Ethereum blockchain environment. This model integrates methods such as smart contract rigorous validation, transaction irregularity spotting, and network assault emulation. Rigorous experiments and simulations vouch for the models efficiency in pinpointing security breaches, marking an impressive 85% detection precision and an 81% robustness against uncharted zero-day onslaughts not encountered during model preparation. When juxtaposed with individual security tactics, the model exhibits a dominant stance in terms of attack deterrence, threat spectrum, and system productivity. Yet, the relentless advent of innovative attack strategies in this field means vulnerabilities remain. To bolster applicability in real-world scenarios, delving deeper into forecasting methodologies and broader tests on active systems prove essential. In essence, this multifaceted research initiative illuminates both theoretical and practical pathways to refine the strategic outline for unyielding security measures, championing prudent innovation and oversight in the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency landscape.

Next generation QCA technology based true random number generator for cryptographic applications

The penchant for almost all modern-day devices is high data and communication security. To achieve the highest standard of security, hardware-based encryption architectures like true random number generators (TRNG) and physically unclonable functions (PUF) supersede attack deterrence to any known software-based cryptography algorithm. The keys generated are random and unpredictable. This paper proposes a new architecture for TRNG in quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) technology using feedback and feed-forward D flip-flop arrangement with small delay defects. A new optimized negative edge-triggered D flip-flop is presented using only 25-QCA cells. This unique and carefully curated TRNG structure ensures the generated output bits are highly unpredictable and truly random in behavior. Furthermore, 15 statistical tests designed for random number generators are performed. These test results validate the random nature of the generated outputs and unpredictable behavior of the proposed TRNG design. The energy dissipation analysis shows a significant improvement of 49.6% for energy dissipation per bit compared to existing designs.

Target-oriented utility for interdiction of transportation networks

Optimal resource allocation in security has been a significant challenge for critical infrastructure protection. We study an optimal resource-allocation model for more cost-effective protection of critical targets on a transportation network. We apply target-oriented utility theory and use mixed-integer programming to determine the optimal level of investment needed to interdict an attacker on a transportation network. We assume that the attacker will choose one target among multiple targets to attack based on factors such as the attractiveness of targets to the attacker and the attack success probabilities, and will be deterred for sufficiently low attack success probabilities. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to illustrate how the optimal defensive strategy depends on parameters such as attacker success probabilities, attacker deterrence, target values, number of targets, and effectiveness of defensive investment.

Survey on evolutionary computation methods for cybersecurity of mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper, a comprehensive survey of evolutionary computation (EC) methods for cybersecurity of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is presented. Typically, EC methods are named based on the natural processes inspiring them, such as swarm intelligence (e.g., ant colony optimization, artificial bee colony, and particle swarm optimization), evolutionary algorithms (e.g., genetic algorithms, genetic programming, grammatical evolution, and differential evolution), artificial immune systems, and evolutionary games analyzing strategic interactions among different population types. We introduce these methods with their typical applications, and commonly used algorithms to improve cybersecurity within the scope of MANETs. Ongoing and speedy topology changes, multi-hop communication, non-hierarchical organization, and power and computational limitations are among the intrinsic characteristics of MANETs causing cybersecurity vulnerabilities. We describe basic defense mechanisms in MANETs for vulnerability detection, attack deterrence, prevention and recovery, and risk mitigation. We classify principal applications of EC as intrusion detection, trust management, and cryptography in cybersecurity systems to counter measure adversarial activities.

A game-theoretic approach for integrity assurance in resource-bounded systems

Assuring communication integrity is a central problem in security. However, overhead costs associated with cryptographic primitives used toward this end introduce significant practical implementation challenges for resource-bounded systems, such as cyber-physical systems. For example, many control systems are built on legacy components which are computationally limited, but have strict timing constraints. If integrity protection is a binary decision, it may simply be infeasible to introduce into such systems; without it, however, an adversary can forge malicious messages, which can cause significant physical or financial harm. To bridge the gap between such binary decisions, we propose a stochastic message authentication approach that can explicitly trade computational cost off for security. We introduce a formal game-theoretic framework for optimal stochastic message authentication, providing provable guarantees for resource-bounded systems based on an existing message authentication scheme. We use our framework to investigate attacker deterrence, as well as optimal stochastic message authentication when deterrence is impossible, in both short-term and long-term equilibria. Additionally, we propose two schemes for implementing stochastic message authentication in practice, one for saving computation only at the receiver and one for saving computation at both ends, and demonstrate the associated computational savings using an actual implementation.

Attacker Deterrence and Perceived Risk in a Stackelberg Security Game.

In Stackelberg security games, a defender must allocate scarce resources to defend against a potential attacker. The optimal defense involves the randomization of scarce security resources, yet how attackers perceive the risk given randomized defense is not well understood. We conducted an experiment where attackers chose whether to attack or not attack targets protected by randomized defense schemes, the key treatment variable being whether the defender picks one target at random to guard or imperfectly guards all targets. The two schemes are expected-payoff equivalent, and when provided separately we found no effect of having one scheme or the other. Yet, when both are present, we found that subjects had a preference for the fixed scheme, a preference that cannot be reduced to differences in beliefs. Overall, our results suggest that understanding how individuals perceive risk is vital to understand the behavior of attackers.

What Use Overwhelming Air Superiority? A Tale of Two Campaigns

Longer wars between mismatched opponents often end with the militarily weaker side showing unexpected strengths. This article tests this tendency in two short wars in which overwhelming force superiority was applied in massive air attacks. Operation Enduring Freedom (the 2001 American campaign in Afghanistan) and Operation Cast Lead (the 2008–2009 Israeli campaign in Gaza) both began with air offensives that shifted to air-supported ground combat, but Enduring Freedom (a Type A operation) gave priority to aerial attack, while in Cast Lead (Type B) air operations primarily paved the way for ground combat. Neither campaign was fully decisive, suggesting that the residual capabilities of weaker combatants apply to short as well as protracted hostilities. The Type A attack was decisive against the Taliban, but not against al Qaeda. The more intensive Type B case, Cast Lead, did not lead to greater decisiveness than its counterpart, with Israel emphasizing force demonstration to enhance deterrence of attack, yet not seeking to destroy Hamas's residual military capability. The problem of translating large military superiority into decisive war results is also evident recently in more common, stretched out, and restrained airpower use supporting higher-priority ground combat, as in NATO's 2011 intervention in Libya and the aerial drone campaign in Pakistan supporting NATO war making in Afghanistan.

Modelling ‘contracts’ between a terrorist group and a government in a sequential game

In this paper, we apply a sequential game to study the possibility of ‘contracts’ (or at least mutually beneficial arrangements) between a government and a terrorist group. We find equilibrium solutions for complete and incomplete information models, where the government defends and/or provides positive rent, and the terrorist group attacks. We also study the sensitivities of equilibria as a function of both players’ target valuations and preferences for rent. The contract option, if successful, may achieve (partial) attack deterrence, and significantly increase the payoffs not only for the government, but also for some types of terrorist groups. Our work thus provides some novel insights in combating terrorism.

The challenge of cyber attack deterrence

National security planners have begun to look beyond reactive, tactical cyber defense to proactive, strategic cyber defense, which may include international military deterrence. The incredible power of nuclear weapons gave birth to deterrence, a military strategy in which the purpose of armies shifted from winning wars to preventing them. Although cyber attacks per se do not compare to a nuclear explosion, they do pose a serious and increasing threat to international security. Real-world examples suggest that cyber warfare will play a lead role in future international conflicts. This article examines the two deterrence strategies available to nation-states (denial and punishment) and their three basic requirements (capability, communication, and credibility) in the light of cyber warfare. It also explores whether the two most challenging aspects of cyber attacks – attribution and asymmetry – will make cyber attack deterrence an impossible task.

Cooperation under predation risk: experiments on costs and benefits

Two fish that cooperatively inspect a predator may have negotiated the share of the risk that each takes. A test of both the costs of predator inspection dependent on the distance from which the predator is approached and the potential benefits of cooperation was carried out strictly experimentally. We made either singletons or pairs of dead sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus , approach hungry pike, Esox lucius , by remote control according to an algorithm that mimicked natural inspection. The predation risk of both single inspectors and parallel inspecting pairs increased with closer inspection distances. A member of an inspecting pair had only about half the risk of that of a single inspector. In pairs, a companion diluted the lead fish9s risk of being caught, depending on its distance behind the leader. The absolute risk difference between leader and follower was greatest for close inspection distances and decreased further away from the predator. The leader9s relative risk increased with its distance ahead of the laggard. However, for a given distance between leader and laggard, the relative risks of the two fish remained similar with distance from the predator. The cost side of the inequalities that define a ‘Prisoner9s Dilemma‘has thus been measured for this system. In a second experiment the ‘attack deterrence hypothesis’of predator inspection (i.e. inspection decreases attack probability) was tested. The pike was offered a choice between two sticklebacks, one of which had carried out a predator inspection visit. There was no indication of attack deterrence through predator inspection.

Extended Deterrence with Nuclear Weapons: How Necessary, How Acceptable?

Most policy and normative problems with nuclear weaponry arise in the context of extended deterrence; that is, deterrence of attacks on friends or allies of a nuclear power. This article reviews the history and contradictions of post-World War II Western extended deterrent strategy, considers the sources of differences and similarities in the perspectives of the American and West German Catholic bishops on these matters, presents a logical schema of types of deterrent situations, discusses some systematic historical evidence that suggests the utility of nuclear weapons for many of these situations is often exaggerated, and, after reviewing alternative strategies, suggests a role for a very limited “countercombatant” nuclear strategy.

Dilemmas of Common Deterrence

Discussions of nuclear strategy typically include extensive discussions of the credibility or incredibility of extended deterrence, the process by which the United States somehow deters attacks on itself and also on its most valued allies by the prospect of an escalation to nuclear retaliatory attacks on the Soviet Union. It is in such debates about the credibility and the appropriateness of extensions of the nuclear umbrella that we find the most interesting and controversial portions of all the arguments about nuclear strategy.' Has the defense become common deterrence? And with whom is such deterrence being maintained in common? It is remarkable how deterrence is almost automatically assumed to be credible for the deterrence of attacks on the United States itself. The logic by which the rationality and the believability of massive retaliation is to be questioned on behalf of South Korea or of West Germany might, after all, be applied just as directly to responses to a Soviet conventional or nuclear attack on the home territory of the United States. If Soviet conventional ground and naval forces were invading Alaska or Arizona, or Soviet nuclear forces had destroyed some, but not all, of the targets inside the United States, would it really make sense for the United States to respond with a full-fledged version of a thermonuclear World War III? Indeed, if all the targets the U.S. values were destroyed and all Americans were killed, what would be the point of getting even by inflicting any parallel destruction on the Soviet Union? Some questions have been posed so often that we sometimes feel that we are seeing

The Middle Cambrian metazoanWiwaxia corrugata(Matthew) from the Burgess Shale andOgygopsisShale, British Columbia, Canada

A detailed redescription of the Middle Cambrian metazoanWiwaxia corrugata(Matthew) is given with the aid of photographs, mostly taken under ultraviolet radiation, and explanatory camera lucida drawings.Wiwaxiais known only from the Stephen Formation with four localities within theBathyuriscus-ElrathinaZone, the celebrated Burgess Shale (Phyllopod bed) andOgygopsisShale and two localities that appear to expose strata relatively high in the Formation, and a new locality in the underlyingGlossopleuraZone. Specimens from theOgygopsisShale consist almost entirely of isolated sclerites, whereas in the Phyllopod bed the species is also known from entire specimens, semi-isolated assemblages and isolated soft-parts. T he description here is based almost entirely on Phyllopod bed m aterial.Wiwaxiawas originally largely covered by sclerites. On the basis of shape and arrangement five distinct zones are recognizable: dorsal, upper lateral, lower lateral, anterior and ventro-lateral. In addition, there was a row of elongate dorso-lateral spinose sclerites running along either side of the body. Each sclerite was inserted separately via a root-like structure. Growth of the animal appears to have occurred by moulting of the sclerites; one unique juvenile specimen appears to be preserved in the act of moulting. The ventral surface was apparently an area of soft tissue devoid of sclerites. Little is known of the internal anatomy, although anteriorly there was a feeding apparatus consisting of two rows of posteriorly directed teeth. Most stages of growth are known varying from presumed juveniles, which at their smallest may have lacked spines, to adults over 50 mm long.Wiwaxiaappears to have been an epifaunal deposit feeder that crawled across the sea-bed, although smaller juveniles may have been infaunal. The dorso-lateral spines may have provided protection against predators and the existence of broken spines suggests the successful deterrence of attack. The affinities ofWiwaxiado not appear to lie with the polychaetous annelids. While the possibilities of convergence cannot be eliminated, there appears to be a significant similarity betweenWiwaxiaand molluscs that suggests a related derivation from a turbellarian ancestor. Nevertheless, Wiwaxia has a distinctive bodyplan and as such cannot be accommodated in any known phylum. WhileWiwaxiais unique to the Stephen Formation isolated sclerites from Lower Cambrian rocks appear to represent earlier wiwaxiids, although these sclerites show differences in their size and composition as com pared withWiwaxia.Wiwaxiaenhances knowledge of early metazoan evolution and ecology in the Cambrian. In particular, it gives fresh insights into the origin and relative success of certain metazoan bodyplans, the origin of trace fossils, and the importance of predation in Cambrian communities.

Observations on the Impact of Uncertainty in Strategic Analysis

The effects of uncertainty in strategic analysis are generally not well understood, but are increasingly important in relating the strategic calculations by means of which we evaluate the adequacy of our strategic forces to the deterrence of attack in the world of real political leaders, in real crises. Assumptions must be made about many unknowns and uncertainties—ranging from the behavior of national leaders to the technical characteristics of weapons systems—in order to make the problem calculable. The assumptions we make for purposes of analysis, however, are not necessarily the same as those that political leaders can make in considering the actual use of nuclear forces. This distinction is at the root of the relationship between strategic analysis and real-world deterrence. Systematic examination of the uncertainties in strategic analysis, therefore, can help us to better understand the difference between our analytical model and the real world, and hence to put our strategic problems in better perspective.