An Exploratory Study of a Masking Strategy of Cyberdeception Using CyberVAN

Abstract

During the network reconnaissance process, attackers scan the network to gather information before launching an attack. This is a good chance for defenders to use deception and disrupt the attacker’s learning process. In this paper, we present an exploratory experiment to test the effectiveness of a masking strategy (compared to a random masking strategy) to reduce the utility of attackers. A total of 30 human participants (in the role of attackers) are randomly assigned to one of the two experimental conditions: Optimal or Random (15 in each condition). Attackers appeared to be more successful in launching attacks in the optimal condition compared to the random condition but the total score of attackers was not different from the random masking strategy. Most importantly, we found a generalized tendency to act according to the certainty bias (or risk aversion). These observations will help to improve the current state-of-the-art masking algorithms of cyberdefense.