用分层强化学习构建自主网络防御系统,提升应对复杂攻击的效率与适应性。
Hierarchical Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning for Cyber Network Defense
- 分层PPO架构将防御任务拆解为调查与恢复等子任务,提升学习效率。
- 在CybORG Cage 4上,收敛速度更快,干净主机比例达87%,误报率更低。
- 子策略可低成本迁移,适合应对攻击行为变化或网络结构调整。
多智能体强化学习(MARL)为解决复杂现实任务带来新可能,网络安全是其重要应用领域。当前网络防御仍依赖安全团队应对复杂对手,面临策略空间大、观测不全及隐蔽欺骗性攻击等挑战。本文提出一种分层近端策略优化(PPO)架构,将防御任务分解为网络探查、主机恢复等子任务,利用融合网络安全知识的PPO训练各子策略,并由主策略协调选择以完成复杂防御任务。该方法支持子策略的轻量微调与迁移,有效适应攻击行为变化或网络环境变更。在当前最先进的网络安全强化学习环境CybORG Cage 4上,与多个基线对比显示,本方法在收敛速度、每回合回报及可解释指标(如干净主机占比、精确率、误报率)上均表现最优。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Recent advances in multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) have created opportunities to solve complex real-world tasks. Cybersecurity is a notable application area, where defending networks against sophisticated adversaries remains a challenging task typically performed by teams of security operators. In this work, we explore novel MARL strategies for building autonomous cyber network defenses that address challenges such as large policy spaces, partial observability, and stealthy, deceptive adversarial strategies. To facilitate efficient and generalized learning, we propose a hierarchical Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) architecture that decomposes the cyber defense task into specific sub-tasks like network investigation and host recovery. Our approach involves training sub-policies for each sub-task using PPO enhanced with cybersecurity domain expertise. These sub-policies are then leveraged by a master defense policy that coordinates their selection to solve complex network defense tasks. Furthermore, the sub-policies can be fine-tuned and transferred with minimal cost to defend against shifts in adversarial behavior or changes in network settings. We conduct extensive experiments using CybORG Cage 4, the state-of-the-art MARL environment for cyber defense. Comparisons with multiple baselines across different adversaries show that our hierarchical learning approach achieves top performance in terms of convergence speed, episodic return, and several interpretable metrics relevant to cybersecurity, including the fraction of clean machines on the network, precision, and false positives.
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