Deterrence with Imperfect Attribution

Abstract

Motivated by recent developments in cyberwarfare, we study deterrence in a world where attacks cannot be perfectly attributed to attackers. In the model, each of $$ n $$ attackers may attack the defender. The defender observes a noisy signal that probabilistically attributes the attack. The defender may retaliate against one or more attackers and wants to retaliate against the guilty attacker only. We note an endogenous strategic complementarity among the attackers: if one attacker becomes more aggressive, that attacker becomes more “suspect” and the other attackers become less suspect, which leads the other attackers to become more aggressive as well. Despite this complementarity, there is a unique equilibrium. We identify types of improvements in attribution that strengthen deterrence—namely, improving attack detection independently of any effect on the identifiability of the attacker, reducing false alarms, or replacing misidentification with non-detection. However, we show that other improvements in attribution can backfire, weakening deterrence—these include detecting more attacks where the attacker is difficult to identify or pursuing too much certainty in attribution. Deterrence is improved if the defender can commit to a retaliatory strategy in advance, but the defender should not always commit to retaliate more after every signal.

Crime Aggregation, Deterrence, and Witness Credibility

“…Third, our paper contributes to the law and economics literature by (i) studying decision rules that aggregate the probabilities of offenses, (ii) endogenizing the informativeness of witness testimonies, and (iii) analyzing the interplay between an individual's incentive to commit offenses and witnesses' incentives to report the truth. 6 Our results justify a key feature of criminal justice systems, which is to treat distinct accusations separately in conviction decisions. Our finding (Proposition 3) that a lower punishment can reduce the probability of offense stands in contrast to Becker's (1968) well-known observation that maximal punishments save on law-enforcement costs.…”

“…This implies inequality (6). The rest of the proof is divided in two cases: Section I.1 considers the case π o ≥ π * and Section I.2 considers the case π o < π * .…”

Foreign Influence and Domestic Policy

“…Moreover, simultaneous interventions by state and non-state actors may occur, making it difficult to establish who is responsible. This hinders deterrence and may create strategic complementarities among those who seek foreign infouence leading to more aggressive attacks (Baliga, Bueno de Mesquita, and Wolitzky 2019). Clearly, the emergence of cyber warfare poses new theoretical and empirical challenges to research on foreign influence.…”

Information and Innovative Technologies in the Turbulence Era

“…Порівняно зі збройними нападами, кібероперації можуть приховуватися від громадськості через їхній часто невидимий характер 697 . Крім того, вибір часу (timing), пов'язаний з кібератрибуцією (cyber attribution), може знижувати помітність відповіді 698 : кібератрибуція − це процес відстеження, ідентифікування та покладання відповідальності на кіберпорушника (perpetrator of a cyberattack) чи іншого хакерського експлойту (exploit), програмного коду з використанням вразливості програмного забезпечення або недоліку безпеки. Оскільки в кіберсфері стримування шляхом покарання (за статтею 5) може бути уповільненим і менш правдоподібним, то публічне оголошення НАТО порогу в кібернетичному і космічному просторі має підтримувати роль цього порогу і водночас зважати на особливості стримування в кіберсфері.…”