Coping with Digital Extortion: An Experimental Study of Benefit Appeals and Normative Appeals
Coping with Digital Extortion: An Experimental Study of Benefit Appeals and Normative Appeals
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DOI：
10.1287/mnsc.2021.4154
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发表时间：
2021-11-22
影响因子：
5.4
通讯作者：
Lang, Yan
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen, Kay-Yut;Wang, Jingguo;Lang, Yan
数字勒索已成为依赖信息技术开展业务的组织面临的重大威胁。使用人体实验，我们研究的有效性的消息呼吁，鼓励捍卫者采取两种缓解策略，投资于安全和拒绝支付赎金，数字勒索威胁。我们探讨两种类型的上诉，利益和规范，为此目的。我们发现，防御者（代表任何可能成为潜在受害者的组织）的决定偏离了博弈论的预测。然而，考虑到防御者和攻击者之间的战略互动以及嘈杂的决策行为，解开上诉对防御者的影响是具有挑战性的。我们建立了一个基于量子反应均衡框架的结构模型来衡量信息诉求如何改变防守者的投资和拒绝支付效用。虽然干预措施可能会成功地增加投资和/或支付拒绝的效用，但它们对投资率和支付率的影响会因攻击者减少冒险而减轻。因此，采取干预措施来大幅提高社区的投资率或抑制赎金支付率是具有挑战性的。我们描述了一个社区的安全结果（包括预期的赎金，攻击率，投资率和支付率）如何随防御者的投资和拒绝支付的效用而变化。
Digital extortion has emerged as a significant threat to organizations that rely on information technologies for their operations. Using human subject experimentation, we study the effectiveness of message appeals in encouraging defenders to adopt two mitigation strategies, investment in security and refusal to pay ransoms, to digital extortion threats. We explore two types of appeals, benefit and normative, for this purpose. We find that the decisions of the defenders (representing any organization that can be a potential victim) deviate from the predictions of game theory. However, given the strategic interactions between the defenders and the attacker as well as noisy decision-making behaviors, it is challenging to untangle the influence of the appeals on the defenders. We develop a structural model based on the quantal response equilibrium framework to measure how message appeals change the defenders' utilities of investment and payment refusal. Although the interventions may be successful in increasing the utilities of investment and/or payment refusal, their impacts on investment rate and payment rate are mitigated by the attacker reducing ransoms. Thus, it is challenging for an intervention to significantly boost a community's investment rate or to suppress the ransom payment rate. We characterize how security outcomes of a community (including expected ransom, attack rate, investment rate, and payment rate) vary with the defenders' utilities of investment and pay refusal.