A blockchain based efficient incentive mechanism in tripartite cyber threat intelligence service marketplace

The Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) marketplace is an emerging platform for CTI service requesters to countermeasure advanced cyber attacks, where CTI service providers are employed on payment. To create a trustworthy CTI marketplace environment, consortium-blockchain-based CTI service platforms have been widely proposed, where the blockchain system becomes the third role, crucially impacting the CTI service quality. How to sustainably promote CTI service quality in this tripartite marketplace is a challenging issue, which has not been well investigated in the literature. In this study, we propose a two-stage tripartite dynamic game-model-based incentive mechanism, where the participation incentives of the three parties are promoted under the constraints of Individual Rationality (IR) and Incentive Compatibility (IC). The sustainability of CTI service is quantitatively formalized through the CTI market demand, which impacts the future profits of the three parties. The Nash equilibrium of the proposed incentive mechanism is solved, where the CTI requester offers an optimal price to achieve effective defense against cyber attacks, and the blockchain platform and CTI service providers collaboratively contribute high-quality CTI services. Empirical experimental results show that the higher the quality of CTI services provided in the marketplace, the greater the market demand for CTI, resulting in a sustainable CTI marketplace.