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Main Authors: Collins, Brandon, Gherna, Thomas, Paarporn, Keith, Xu, Shouhuai, Brown, Philip N.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.01096
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author Collins, Brandon
Gherna, Thomas
Paarporn, Keith
Xu, Shouhuai
Brown, Philip N.
author_facet Collins, Brandon
Gherna, Thomas
Paarporn, Keith
Xu, Shouhuai
Brown, Philip N.
contents The Boolean Kalman Filter and associated Boolean Dynamical System Theory have been proposed to study the spread of infection on computer networks. Such models feature a network where attacks propagate through, an intrusion detection system that provides noisy signals of the true state of the network, and the capability of the defender to clean a subset of computers at any time. The Boolean Kalman Filter has been used to solve the optimal estimation problem, by estimating the hidden true state given the attack-defense dynamics and noisy observations. However, this algorithm is intractable because it runs in exponential time and space with respect to the network size. We address this feasibility problem by proposing a mean-field estimation approach, which is inspired by the epidemic modeling literature. Although our approach is heuristic, we prove that our estimator exactly matches the optimal estimator in certain non-trivial cases. We conclude by using simulations to show both the run-time improvement and estimation accuracy of our approach.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_01096
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Efficient State Estimation of a Networked FlipIt Model
Collins, Brandon
Gherna, Thomas
Paarporn, Keith
Xu, Shouhuai
Brown, Philip N.
Cryptography and Security
The Boolean Kalman Filter and associated Boolean Dynamical System Theory have been proposed to study the spread of infection on computer networks. Such models feature a network where attacks propagate through, an intrusion detection system that provides noisy signals of the true state of the network, and the capability of the defender to clean a subset of computers at any time. The Boolean Kalman Filter has been used to solve the optimal estimation problem, by estimating the hidden true state given the attack-defense dynamics and noisy observations. However, this algorithm is intractable because it runs in exponential time and space with respect to the network size. We address this feasibility problem by proposing a mean-field estimation approach, which is inspired by the epidemic modeling literature. Although our approach is heuristic, we prove that our estimator exactly matches the optimal estimator in certain non-trivial cases. We conclude by using simulations to show both the run-time improvement and estimation accuracy of our approach.
title Efficient State Estimation of a Networked FlipIt Model
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.01096