Analysis of Leaky Deception for Network Security using Signaling Games with Evidence

Deception plays critical roles in economics and technology, especially in emerging interactions in cyberspace. Holistic models of deception are needed in order to analyze interactions and to design mechanisms that improve them. Game theory provides such models. In particular, existing work models deception using signaling games. But signaling games inherently model deception that is undetectable. In this paper, we analyze an extended version of signaling games that includes a detector which gives off probabilistic warnings when the sender acts deceptively. We derive pooling and partially-separating equilibria of the game. We find that 1) high-quality detectors eliminate some pure-strategy equilibria, 2) detectors with high true-positive rates encourage more honest signaling than detectors with low false-positive rates, and 3) receivers obtain optimal outcomes for equal-error-rate detectors. We illustrate these results with an application to defensive deception for network security. Our results provide a quantitative and rigorous analysis of the fundamental aspects of detectable deception.