Game Theoretical Secure Caching Scheme in Multi-Homing Heterogeneous Networks

Caching contents in small cell base stations (SBSs), namely, caching-enabled SBSs, has become a promising technology for mitigating burdens of macro cell base stations and backbone links. However, as some SBSs may be malicious, how to provide a secure caching scheme becomes challenging. In this paper, we propose a novel secure caching scheme in heterogeneous networks for multi-homing users. Firstly, to achieve availability of cached contents, a trust mechanism is designed to verify the reliability of each SBS. Then, we investigate the interactions among mobile users and SBSs according to Stackelberg game, where the trusted SBSs are selected to provide caching space for mobile users with multi-homing access. In addition, we investigate the Stackelberg equilibrium (SE) to jointly maximize the utilities of SBSs and mobile users. Extensive simulations validates the efficiency of the proposed scheme by evaluating the reliability and effectiveness to cache contents.