A Game Theoretic Approach for SYN Flood Attacks of Web Server

In this paper, a non-cooperative two person zero-sum static game(with in a discrete interval of time) is formulated and analyzed for the interaction between the SYN flood attacker and the web server administrator. The SYN flood game (SFG) payoffs are calculated based on Erlang loss queuing model. The solution of the SFG leads to mixed strategy and analyzed for different scenarios the numerical illustrations are also provided. The SFG is beneficial to the attacker even when the defender is defending at maximum level. This theoretical approach of SFG facilitates the web server administrator to take care of SYN flood attacks and to provide the better security by tuning the TCP connection keep-alive time (tout) parameter. KeywordsBlocking probability, Erlang loss queueing model, SYN flood attacks, Two person zero sum game, Web server.