Cybersecurity games and investments: A decision support approach

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how to optimally invest in cybersecurity controls. We are particularly interested in examining cases where the organization suffers from an underinvestment problem or inefficient spending on cybersecurity. To this end, we first model the cybersecurity environment of an organization. We then model non-cooperative cybersecurity control-games between the defender which abstracts all defense mechanisms of the organization and the attacker which can exploit different vulnerabilities at different network locations. To implement our methodology we use the SANS Top 20 Critical Security Controls and the 2011 CWE/SANS top 25 most dangerous software errors. Based on the profile of an organization, which forms its preferences in terms of indirect costs, its concerns about different kinds of threats and the importance of the assets given their associated risks we derive the Nash Equilibria of a series of control-games. These game solutions are then handled by optimization techniques, in particular multi-objective, multiple choice Knapsack to determine the optimal cybersecurity investment. Our methodology provides security effective and cost efficient solutions especially against commodity attacks. We believe our work can be used to advise security managers on how they should spend an available cybersecurity budget given their organization profile.