Emotional State Classification and Related Behaviors Among Cyber Attackers

Ryan Gabrys, Anu Venkatesh, Daniel Silva, Mark Bilinski, Maxine Major, Justin Mauger, Daniel H. Muhleman, Kimberly Ferguson-Walter

Abstract: Cyber deception is a strategy that defenders can leverage to gain an advantage over cyber attackers. The effects of deception on the attacker however, are not yet well understood. Quantifying the tangible and emotional effects of deception on the attacker’s performance, beliefs, and emotional state are critical to deploying effective, targeted cyber deception. Our work uses data from a human-subjects experiment measuring the impact of cyber and psychological deception on over 100 professional red-teamers. These results demonstrate that an attacker’s cognitive and emotional state can often be inferred from data already observed and collected by cyber defenders world-wide. Future work will leverage this observed data-set to formulate more informed defensive strategies.