Devil take the hindmost: Deflecting attacks to other defenders

Gautam Bose and Kai Konrad

Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 2020, vol. 204, issue C

Abstract: We study the indirect strategic interactions between several defenders and between several attackers if each attacker chooses one defender to attack and the force of the attack. If the target choice is based on observations about chosen defence efforts, this choice behavior incentivizes the individual defenders and the defenders compete against each other to not being among the weakest targets. If defence effort is unobservable, this competition between defenders is absent. We also compare the fully non-cooperative equilibria with the outcome if the defenders cooperate and study possible non-cooperative contributions to collective defence.

Keywords: Attack-and-defence; multiple targets; IT-Systems; Hackers; Private defence; Overarching defence; Deflection of attack (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D74 D82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reensy:v:204:y:2020:i:c:s0951832020307067

DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2020.107205

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