Optimal Deceptive Strategies in Security Games: A Preliminary Study

Attacker-defender Stackelberg games have been used in several deployed applications of game theory for infrastructure security. Security resources of the defender are game-theoretically allocated to prevent a strategic attacker from using surveillance to learn and exploit patterns in the allocation. Existing work on security games assumes that the defender honestly displays her real security resources. We introduce a new model in which the defender may use deceptive resources (e.g., a mock camera in the part for deterring potential adversaries, or a hidden camera on the road for detecting overspeed) to mislead the attacker. We provide algorithms for computing the defender’s optimal strategy in consideration of deceptions. We also present experimental results evaluating the effectiveness of using deceptive strategies.