Adversarial Cost Model (ACM v1.0): Economic–Computational Limits of Real-World Security

Abstract

This work introduces the Adversarial Cost Model (ACM v1.0), a formal security framework unifying computational, economic, and physical attack costs in a single rational adversary model. Unlike traditional security models based purely on computational hardness, ACM evaluates real-world feasibility of attacks under post-quantum cryptography, behavioral authentication, zero-knowledge proof systems, and decentralized governance. The model formalizes adversarial actions through total cost functions combining time complexity, hardware requirements, capital liquidity, and physical laboratory constraints. Multiple critical attack classes are analyzed, including hybrid side-channel + Grover attacks, GAN-based behavioral cloning, flash-loan Sybil governance attacks, post-quantum brute-force exhaustion, and zero-knowledge proof forgery. The results demonstrate that many real-world system failures arise not from cryptographic weakness, but from mispriced economic atomicity and cost-free identity or governance acquisition. ACM provides a rationality threshold theorem formalizing when attacks become economically and physically irrational. The model directly informs secure system architecture design by enforcing multi-layer cost escalation across cryptographic, physical, behavioral, and governance layers. This work is intended for cryptography, blockchain security, adversarial machine learning, economic attack modeling, and post-quantum system design.