Malware Epidemics Effects in a Lanchester Conflict Model
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For developing a better comprehension of the consequences of cyber-attacks, the paper examines the influence of system infections with self-replicating malware on the outcome of kinetic combat. The situation is represented as a system-dynamics model consisting of a SIR-like and a Lanchester component. The game-like context of kinetic combat illustrates the effects of malware in a concise way. Corresponding assessment criteria are derived and applied to scenario classes resulting from assumptions about the expected circumstances. Remaining uncertainties are taken into account by applying Monte-Carlo simulations, whereby the specific scenarios to be processed can be selected randomly by information-theoretic principles. The resulting framework allows a model-based calculation of e.g. the risk and the fraction of scenarios, in which malware attacks turn around the outcome of the kinetic combat. Some of our basic findings derived from computational calculations are: (1) Malware attacks affecting availability can turn around the outcome of kinetic combat in a significant fraction of scenarios. (2) Cyber capabilities tend to soften out kinetic superiority or inferiority. (3) Using the most aggressive malware is not necessarily the best decision for an aggressor. (4) Starting countermeasures against a malware attack at the earliest possible time is not always the best decision for a defender.
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