Corporate cyber smearing and the use of game theory in management decision‐making

It has been well established that most people become defensive when they perceive to be on the receiving end of an offence. A common demonstration with a physical analogy to this psychological phenomenon is by pushing on a person's outstretched hand and observing that the person pushes back in response. Taken in more real‐world situations, businesses take actions in response to perceived attacks but rather than pushing back, there are other options with potentially better outcomes. Decision technologies are helpful in management decision‐making about attack vectors. A significant amount of work has gone into technical approaches to dealing with cyber attacks, but few have been studied relative to predicting cyber harassment. We propose how game theory might be used for such purposes.