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Trends and Applications in Stackelberg Security Games

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Handbook of Dynamic Game Theory

Abstract

Security is a critical concern around the world, whether it is the challenge of protecting ports, airports, and other critical infrastructure; interdicting the illegal flow of drugs, weapons, and money; protecting endangered wildlife, forests, and fisheries; or suppressing urban crime or security in cyberspace. Unfortunately, limited security resources prevent full security coverage at all times; instead, we must optimize the use of limited security resources. To that end, we founded a new “security games” framework that has led to building of decision aids for security agencies around the world. Security games are a novel area of research that is based on computational and behavioral game theory while also incorporating elements of AI planning under uncertainty and machine learning. Today security-games-based decision aids for infrastructure security are deployed in the US and internationally; examples include deployments at ports and ferry traffic with the US Coast Guard, for security of air traffic with the US Federal Air Marshals, and for security of university campuses, airports, and metro trains with police agencies in the US and other countries. Moreover, recent work on “green security games” has led our decision aids to be deployed, assisting NGOs in protection of wildlife; and “opportunistic crime security games” have focused on suppressing urban crime. In cyber-security domain, the interaction between the defender and adversary is quite complicated with high degree of incomplete information and uncertainty. Recently, applications of game theory to provide quantitative and analytical tools to network administrators through defensive algorithm development and adversary behavior prediction to protect cyber infrastructures has also received significant attention. This chapter provides an overview of use-inspired research in security games including algorithms for scaling up security games to real-world sized problems, handling multiple types of uncertainty, and dealing with bounded rationality and bounded surveillance of human adversaries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that not all security games in the literature are Stackelberg security games (see Alpcan and Başar 2010).

  2. 2.

    Note that mixed strategy solutions apply beyond Stackelberg games.

  3. 3.

    DOBSS addresses Bayesian Stackelberg games with multiple follower types, but for simplicity we do not introduce Bayesian Stackelberg games here.

  4. 4.

    We use the term green security games also to avoid any confusion that may come about given that terms related to the environment and security have been adopted for other uses. For example, the term “environmental security” broadly speaking refers to threats posed to humans due to environmental issues, e.g., climate change or shortage of food. The term “environmental criminology” on the other hand refers to analysis and understanding of how different environments affect crime.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Debarun Kar

  2. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Thanh H. Nguyen

  3. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Fei Fang

  4. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Matthew Brown

  5. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Arunesh Sinha

  6. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Milind Tambe

  7. Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Albert Xin Jiang

Authors
  1. Debarun Kar
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  2. Thanh H. Nguyen
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  3. Fei Fang
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  4. Matthew Brown
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  5. Arunesh Sinha
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  6. Milind Tambe
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  7. Albert Xin Jiang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Debarun Kar .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, USA

    Tamer Basar

  2. GERAD, HEC Montréal, Montreal, Québec, Canada

    Georges Zaccour

Section Editor information

  1. Coordinated Science Laboratory, University of Illinois, 1308 West Main, 61801, Urbana, Illinois, USA

    Tamer Basar

  2. GERAD, HEC Montreal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Georges Zaccour

  3. Département de sciences de la décision, GERAD, HEC Montreal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Georges Zaccour

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Kar, D. et al. (2016). Trends and Applications in Stackelberg Security Games. In: Basar, T., Zaccour, G. (eds) Handbook of Dynamic Game Theory. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27335-8_27-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27335-8_27-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27335-8

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