Theoretical Economics

Journal of the Econometric Society

Edited by: Federico Echenique • ISSN (e): 1555-7561 • ISSN (print): 1933-6837

Theoretical Economics: Nov, 2023, Volume 18, Issue 4

Attack and interception in networks

https://doi.org/10.3982/TE5122
p. 1511-1546

Francis Bloch, Kalyan Chatterjee, Bhaskar Dutta

This paper studies a game of attack and interception in a network, where a single attacker chooses a target and a path, and each node chooses a level of protection. We show that the Nash equilibrium of the game exists and is unique. We characterize equilibrium attack paths and attack distributions as a function of the underlying network and target values. We show that adding a link or increasing the value of a target may harm the attacker - a comparative statics effect which is reminiscent of Braess's paradox in transportation economics. Finally, we contrast the Nash equilibrium with the equilibria of two variations of the model: one where all nodes cooperate in interception and one where nodes update their beliefs and make inspection decisions upon observing the arrival of a suspicious object.


Full Content