Decision-making and biases in cybersecurity capability development: Evidence from a simulation game experiment
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1-s2.0-S0963868717304353-main.pdf
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3.81 MB
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Checksum (MD5)
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Author(s)
Jalali, Seyed Mohammad Javad
Siegel, Michael D
Madnick, Stuart E
Date Issued
September 2018
Journal
Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Publisher
Elsevier
Citation
Jalali, Mohammad S. et al. “Decision-Making and Biases in Cybersecurity Capability Development: Evidence from a Simulation Game Experiment.” The Journal of Strategic Information Systems (September 2018) © 2018 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We developed a simulation game to study the effectiveness of decision-makers in overcoming two complexities in building cybersecurity capabilities: potential delays in capability development; and uncertainties in predicting cyber incidents. Analyzing 1479 simulation runs, we compared the performances of a group of experienced professionals with those of an inexperienced control group. Experienced subjects did not understand the mechanisms of delays any better than inexperienced subjects; however, experienced subjects were better able to learn the need for proactive decision-making through an iterative process. Both groups exhibited similar errors when dealing with the uncertainty of cyber incidents. Our findings highlight the importance of training for decision-makers with a focus on systems thinking skills, and lay the groundwork for future research on uncovering mental biases about the complexities of cybersecurity. Keywords: Cybersecurity; Decision-making; Simulation; Capability development
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsis.2018.09.003
