Effects of teamwork versus group work on signal detection in cyber defense teams

Abstract

Cyber security is critical for any modern day organization's operations. Organizational structure and reward policies not conducive for teamwork may be affecting the performance of cyber defense analysts. Past research shows that team interaction could lead to better cyber defense performance. However, the value of team work in the cyber defense context has not been demonstrated using empirical methodologies. To explore this, we conducted a study on the effects of teamwork versus group work (i.e., looking at both the team and individual levels) on signal detection performance of cyber security defense analysts using the synthetic task environment called CyberCog. The results from the preliminary analysis conducted reveal that simply encouraging analysts to work as a team and providing team-level rewards leads to better team performance in cyber defense analysis. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.