Utilizing a Game Theoretical Approach to Prevent Collusion and Incentivize Cooperation in Cybersecurity Contexts

In this research, a new reputation-based model is utilized to disincentivize collusion
of defenders and attackers in Software Defined Networks (SDN), and also, to disincentivize
dishonest mining strategies in Blockchain. In the context of SDN, the model uses the
reputation values assigned to each entity to disincentivize collusion with an attacker. Our
analysis shows that not-colluding actions become Nash Equilibrium using the reputationbased
model within a repeated game setting. In the context of Blockchain and mining,
we illustrate that by using the same socio-rational model, miners not only are incentivized
to conduct honest mining but also disincentivized to commit to any malicious activities
against other mining pools. We therefore show that honest mining strategies become Nash
Equilibrium in our setting.
This thesis is laid out in the following manner. In chapter 2 an introduction to
game theory is provided followed by a survey of previous works in game theoretic network
security, in chapter 3 a new reputation-based model is introduced to be used within the
context of a Software Defined Network (SDN), in chapter 4 a reputation-based solution
concept is introduced to force cooperation by each mining entity in Blockchain, and finally,
in chapter 5, the concluding remarks and future works are presented.