IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/reensy/v216y2021ics0951832021005068.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the reliability of a voting system under cyber attacks

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Yijia
  • Hu, Xiaoxiao
  • Zhao, Peng

Abstract

Voting systems have been widely used in many areas due to their technical decision making abilities. However, when a voting system operates on any internet platform, it faces a number of potential vulnerabilities including malware and denial of service attacks. In this work, we study the reliability of a majority voting system under cyber threats. Three multiple attack scenarios are considered including targeted, random, and dynamic attacks. We show that under some conditions, the reliability of a voting system decreases with the number of attacked voting components for the targeted attacks; however, for the random attacks, the reliability of a voting system can increase with the number of attacked voting components. For the dynamic attacks, it is discovered that the reliability of a voting system is significantly impacted by the attack rate and the random proposition time. We further develop efficient algorithms for computing the reliability of voting systems which can be employed in practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Yijia & Hu, Xiaoxiao & Zhao, Peng, 2021. "On the reliability of a voting system under cyber attacks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:216:y:2021:i:c:s0951832021005068
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2021.107996
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0951832021005068
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ress.2021.107996?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hafiz Abid Mahmood Malik & Faiza Abid & Mohamed Ridza Wahiddin & Zeeshan Bhatti, 2017. "Robustness of Dengue Complex Network under Targeted versus Random Attack," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2017, pages 1-12, January.
    2. Levitin, Gregory & Hausken, Kjell & Ben Haim, Hanoch, 2013. "Defending majority voting systems against a strategic attacker," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 37-44.
    3. Levitin, Gregory & Xing, Liudong & Xiang, Yanping, 2020. "Optimal early warning defense of N-version programming service against co-resident attacks in cloud system," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    4. Peng, Rui & Wu, Di & Xiao, Hui & Xing, Liudong & Gao, Kaiye, 2019. "Redundancy versus protection for a non-reparable phased-mission system subject to external impacts," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    5. Qingqing Zhai & Rui Peng & Jun Zhuang, 2020. "Defender–Attacker Games with Asymmetric Player Utilities," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(2), pages 408-420, February.
    6. Kjell Hausken, 2011. "Protecting complex infrastructures against multiple strategic attackers," International Journal of Systems Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(1), pages 11-29.
    7. Levitin, Gregory & Xing, Liudong & Xiang, Yanping, 2020. "Optimization of time constrained N-version programming service components with competing task execution and version corruption processes," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    8. Cai, Baoping & Xie, Min & Liu, Yonghong & Liu, Yiliu & Feng, Qiang, 2018. "Availability-based engineering resilience metric and its corresponding evaluation methodology," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 216-224.
    9. Levitin, Gregory & Finkelstein, Maxim & Dai, Yuanshun, 2017. "Redundancy optimization for series-parallel phased mission systems exposed to random shocks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 554-560.
    10. Cai, Baoping & Liu, Yonghong & Liu, Zengkai & Tian, Xiaojie & Dong, Xin & Yu, Shilin, 2012. "Using Bayesian networks in reliability evaluation for subsea blowout preventer control system," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 32-41.
    11. Hu, Xiaoxiao & Xu, Maochao & Xu, Shouhuai & Zhao, Peng, 2017. "Multiple cyber attacks against a target with observation errors and dependent outcomes: Characterization and optimization," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 119-133.
    12. Gregory Levitin & Kjell Hausken, 2011. "Defense Resource Distribution Between Protection and Redundancy for Constant Resource Stockpiling Pace," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(10), pages 1632-1645, October.
    13. Mo, Huadong & Xie, Min & Levitin, Gregory, 2015. "Optimal resource distribution between protection and redundancy considering the time and uncertainties of attacks," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 243(1), pages 200-210.
    14. Levitin, Gregory & Finkelstein, Maxim & Dai, Yuanshun, 2018. "Heterogeneous standby systems with shocks-driven preventive replacements," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 266(3), pages 1189-1197.
    15. Peng, Rui & Xiao, Hui & Guo, Jianjun & Lin, Chen, 2020. "Defending a parallel system against a strategic attacker with redundancy, protection and disinformation," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Levitin, Gregory & Xing, Liudong & Dai, Yuanshun, 2022. "Co-residence based data theft game in cloud system with virtual machine replication and cancellation," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lin, Chen & Xiao, Hui & Kou, Gang & Peng, Rui, 2020. "Defending a series system with individual protection, overarching protection, and disinformation," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    2. Lin, Chen & Xiao, Hui & Peng, Rui & Xiang, Yisha, 2021. "Optimal defense-attack strategies between M defenders and N attackers: A method based on cumulative prospect theory," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 210(C).
    3. Xiao, Hui & Lin, Chen & Kou, Gang & Peng, Rui, 2020. "Optimal resource allocation for defending k-out-of-n systems against sequential intentional and unintentional impacts," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    4. Zhang, Jing & Wang, Yan & Zhuang, Jun, 2021. "Modeling multi-target defender-attacker games with quantal response attack strategies," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 205(C).
    5. Adumene, Sidum & Khan, Faisal & Adedigba, Sunday & Zendehboudi, Sohrab & Shiri, Hodjat, 2021. "Dynamic risk analysis of marine and offshore systems suffering microbial induced stochastic degradation," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    6. Yeh, Wei-Chang & Chu, Ta-Chung, 2018. "A novel multi-distribution multi-state flow network and its reliability optimization problem," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 209-217.
    7. Cai, Baoping & Zhang, Yanping & Wang, Haifeng & Liu, Yonghong & Ji, Renjie & Gao, Chuntan & Kong, Xiangdi & Liu, Jing, 2021. "Resilience evaluation methodology of engineering systems with dynamic-Bayesian-network-based degradation and maintenance," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    8. Wu, Di & Yan, Xiangbin & Peng, Rui & Wu, Shaomin, 2020. "Risk-attitude-based defense strategy considering proactive strike, preventive strike and imperfect false targets," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    9. Dui, Hongyan & Zheng, Xiaoqian & Wu, Shaomin, 2021. "Resilience analysis of maritime transportation systems based on importance measures," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    10. Cheng, Chen & Yang, Jun & Li, Lei, 2020. "Reliability assessment of multi-state phased mission systems with common bus performance sharing considering transmission loss and performance storage," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    11. Li, Xiang-Yu & Huang, Hong-Zhong & Li, Yan-Feng & Xiong, Xiaoyan, 2021. "A Markov regenerative process model for phased mission systems under internal degradation and external shocks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 215(C).
    12. Xiao, Hui & Lin, Chen & Kou, Gang & Peng, Rui, 2022. "Reliability modeling and configuration optimization of a photovoltaic based electric power generation system," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    13. Levitin, Gregory & Xing, Liudong & Dai, Yanshun, 2021. "Security and reliability of N-version cloud-based task solvers with individual version cancellation under data theft attacks," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    14. Di Wu & Xiangbin Yan & Rui Peng & Shaomin Wu, 2020. "Optimal defence-attack strategies between one defender and two attackers," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 71(11), pages 1830-1846, November.
    15. Chen, Die & Xu, Maochao & Shi, Weidong, 2018. "Defending a cyber system with early warning mechanism," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 224-234.
    16. Cheng, Chen & Yang, Jun & Li, Lei, 2021. "Reliability evaluation of a k-out-of-n(G)-subsystem based multi-state phased mission system with common bus performance sharing subjected to common cause failures," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    17. Ramirez-Marquez, José Emmanuel & Li, Qing, 2018. "Locating and protecting facilities from intentional attacks using secrecyAuthor-Name: Zhang, Chi," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 51-62.
    18. Levitin, Gregory & Xing, Liudong & Dai, Yuanshun, 2022. "Co-residence based data theft game in cloud system with virtual machine replication and cancellation," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    19. Mishra, Dillip Kumar & Ghadi, Mojtaba Jabbari & Azizivahed, Ali & Li, Li & Zhang, Jiangfeng, 2021. "A review on resilience studies in active distribution systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    20. Chen, Shun & Zhao, Xudong & Chen, Zhilong & Hou, Benwei & Wu, Yipeng, 2022. "A game-theoretic method to optimize allocation of defensive resource to protect urban water treatment plants against physical attacks," International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:reensy:v:216:y:2021:i:c:s0951832021005068. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/reliability-engineering-and-system-safety .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.