  Moving target defense (MTD) techniques that enable a system to randomize its
configuration to thwart prospective attacks are an effective security solution
for tomorrow's wireless networks. However, there is a lack of analytical
techniques that enable one to quantify the benefits and tradeoffs of MTDs. In
this paper, a novel approach for implementing MTD techniques that can be used
to randomize cryptographic techniques and keys in wireless networks is
proposed. In particular, the problem is formulated as a stochastic game in
which a base station (BS), acting as a defender seeks to strategically change
its cryptographic techniques and keys in an effort to deter an attacker that is
trying to eavesdrop on the data. The game is shown to exhibit a
single-controller property in which only one player, the defender, controls the
state of the game. For this game, the existence and properties of the Nash
equilibrium are studied, in the presence of a defense cost for using MTD. Then,
a practical algorithm for deriving the equilibrium MTD strategies is derived.
Simulation results show that the proposed game-theoretic MTD framework can
significantly improve the overall utility of the defender, while enabling
effective randomization over cryptographic techniques.
