Barriers and Incentives to Cybersecurity Threat Information Sharing in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Threat information sharing practices have the potential to improve cyber security. However, participation in sharing communities is not widely adopted. The existing literature finds a variety of benefits and challenges that either promote or deter organisations from engaging in such practices. Many of these findings relate to developed countries. A gap exists between developed and developing countries in terms of cyber threat information sharing. In this paper, we describe a case study to identify the barriers and incentives for implementing threat information sharing in a developing country: Saudi Arabia. Our results offer insight into the successful implementation of threat information sharing initiatives in Saudi Arabia, showing that socio-cultural barriers and technological incentives for sharing threat information are important factors. Our survey tool can be applied in other countries both developed and developing.