Designing Rating Systems to Promote Mutual Security for Interconnected Networks

Interconnected autonomous systems often share security risks. However, an autonomous system lacks the incentive to make (sufficient) security investments if the cost exceeds its own benefit even though doing that would be socially beneficial. In this paper, we develop a systematic and rigorous framework for analyzing and significantly improving the mutual security of a collection of ASs that interact frequently over a long period of time. Using this framework, we show that simple incentive schemes based on rating systems can be designed to encourage the autonomous systems' security investments, thereby significantly improving their mutual security.