An economic analysis of information security investment decision making for substitutable enterprises

As the competition among enterprises is increasingly fierce, the substitution of information assets makes the behavior of hackers and enterprises more complicated in the information security investment decision‐making process. In this paper, a game model of substitutable enterprise information security investment decision making is constructed by considering the influencing of substitution rate among enterprises, enterprise quantity, and probability of hacker invasion, and the optimal investment level is analyzed among substitutable enterprises under individual decision and joint decision based on game theory, optimization theory, and synergy theory. This research provides a new solution of information security investment decision making among substitutable enterprises.