Crowdsourced cyber defense: lessons from a large-scale, game-based approach to threat identification on a live network

  • Authors:

  • Barton Paulhamus;Alison Ebaugh;C. C. Boylls;Nathan Bos;Sandy Hider;Stephen Giguere

  • Affiliations:

  • Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, United States;Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, United States;Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, United States;Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, United States;Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, United States;Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, Laurel, Maryland, United States

  • Venue:
  • SBP'12 Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction
  • Year:
  • 2012

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Today, the responsibility for U.S. cyber defense is divided asymmetrically between a large population of cyber-naïve end-users and a small cadre of cyber-savvy security experts in government and the private sector. We foresee the rise of "Cyber Civil Defense" driven by the perception of vulnerabilities in our present over-reliance on professionals and propelled by two additional factors: crowdsourced cyber offense and crowdsourced innovation. To explore crowdsourcing cyber defense, we developed an online game called Flux Hunter and deployed the game on a large-scale live network at APL, attracting over 700 players. In this paper, we discuss the concept of crowdsourced cyber defense, describe our online game, present our results, and analyze the performance and behaviors of players individually and collectively, looking for the "wisdom of crowds".