A Security Differential Game Model for Sensor Networks in Context of the Internet of Things

A particular challenging problem in designing Internet of Things is that how to detect and prevent internal attacks, because all nodes try their best to save their limited network resource. So it is difficult to achieve optimal objectives simultaneously, game theory provides an appropriate tool. In this paper, we propose a non-cooperative differential game model, which allows all nodes to choose the optimal amount of network resource to invest in information security contingent upon the state of game. In our model, we specifically consider how the vulnerability of information and the potential loss from such vulnerability affects the optimal amount of resources that should be devoted to securing that information. In the paper, the optimal strategies of selfish nodes and malicious nodes are obtained respectively. The simulation results show that our game model has a good performance in stability of the probability that the selfish nodes discover the malicious nodes under the optimal strategies of the selfish and the malicious nodes.