Evidence of Cognitive Biases in Cyber Attackers from An Empirical Study

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2024-01-03

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934

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Abstract

In this study, the authors aimed to identify cognitive biases exhibited by cyber attackers in the study by Aggarwal et al. (2021). Specifically, this paper investigated whether attackers displayed a preference for targeting systems located in specific areas of the network, as well as investigated any discernible behavioral patterns such as consistently attacking the same system in every round (Default Setting Bias) or persistently targeting a particular system despite previous failures (Sunk Cost Fallacy). The results show evidence for the default effect and sunk cost fallacy in the decision-making processes of human attackers and suggest that they can have significant implications for the effectiveness of cyber defense. This study provides valuable insights for the development of targeted interventions and countermeasures in cyber defense.

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Cyber Deception and Cyberpsychology for Defense, cognitive bias, cyber attackers, cyber defense, default effect, hackit, sunk cost effect

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10 pages

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Proceedings of the 57th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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Table of Contents

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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