Groups Online: Hacktivism and Social Protest

Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics, such as behavioral analysis, cyberpsychology, and online privacy, this book is geared towards IT specialists, administrators, business managers, researchers, and students interested in online ..

The social psychology of cybersecurity

Cybersecurity incidents may seem very technological in nature, but ultimately the hackers and the organisations they target are people, with their own goals, influences and beliefs. There is a danger of relying on lazy stereotypes of those involved in cybersecurity, or taking the Hollywood portrayals of hackers and cybersecurity experts as fact. Our research aims to explore the social psychological factors of this increasingly important societal issue, as well as inputting into the discussion about where psychologists should place themselves in what can be a controversial and morally complex topic

Hackers gonna hack: investigating the effect of group processes and social identities within online hacking communities.

Hacking is an ethically and legally ambiguous area, often associated with cybercrime and cyberattacks. This investigation examines the human side of hacking and the merits of understanding this community. This includes group processes regarding: the identification and adoption of a social identity within hacking, and the variations this may cause in behaviour; trust within in the social identity group; the impact of breaches of trust within the community. It is believed that this research could lead to constructive developments for cybersecurity practices and individuals involved with hacking communities by identifying significant or influencing elements of the social identity and group process within these communities. For cybersecurity, the positive influence on individual security approaches after the hacker social identity adoption, and the subsequent in-group or out-group behaviours, could be adapted to improve security in the work place context. For individuals involved in the communities, an increase in the awareness of the potential influences from their adopted social identities and from other members could help those otherwise vulnerable to manipulation, such as new or younger members. Further discussion on such information, as well as historical examples, will lead to informed behaviour by these communities. Whilst this may not cause the group behaviour to change, it would ensure there would be understanding and acceptance of consequences to unethical or illegal actions, which is hoped to discourage cybercriminal behaviour. The research employed a mixed methods approach, with online questionnaires and individual participant interviews. This approach primarily utilised the netnographic approach (Kozinets, 2015), with the results providing more qualitative information than originally anticipated. Informal data collection for this research included observation of relevant websites and forum discussions as well as observation at hacking related conferences; the subsequent surveys and interviews were conducted with volunteers from these communities. Formal data collection was initiated through a pilot study, carried out in early 2016, with 44 participants. This was followed by the first study survey in early 2017, completed by 155 participants. The second study was individual interviews, conducted with 14 participants throughout 2017. These interviews were analysed in the context of Social Identity Theory (Tajfel, 1974). The third and final study was another survey, conducted early 2018 with 197 participants. Thematic analysis was conducted on all data. There was limited evidence of manipulation of group process or trust observed in forums or reported by participants. The adoption of a specific social identity does have strong and influential behavioural norms; however, the adoption of a specific social identity category does not prevent individuals from identifying and confirming to multiple categories which may use or accept different behaviours. The majority of particiapnts in these studies appeared to position themselves as positive deviants, acknowledging past or minor “black-hat” behaviour. This work contributes to the development and improvement of methodologies in online environments: this research was exploratory in accessing a hard to reach demographic that is often untrusting of outsiders. Adaptions to ethical procedures ensured complete anonymity for the participants, improving the participant recruitment rate. Key findings from this research demonstrate that hacking communities can be very positive and supportive for their members, functioning primarily as meritocracies. This is regarded by the communities as an important positive trait, in conjunction with online anonymity. The conclusions of this research consistently support the findings of previous studies

Introducing Psychological Concepts and Methods to Cybersecurity Students

This chapter will begin with a brief review of the literature that highlights what psychology research and practice can offer to cybersecurity education. The authors draw on their wide-ranging inter-disciplinary teaching experience and in this chapter they discuss their observations gained from teaching psychological principles and methods to undergraduate and postgraduate cybersecurity students. The authors pay special attention to the consideration of the characteristics of cybersecurity students, so that psychology is taught in a way that is accessible and engaging. Finally, the authors offer some practical suggestions for academics to help them incorporate psychology into the cybersecurity curriculum

A cultural exploration of the social media manipulators

The widespread use of Internet social media sites for the production and dissemination of propaganda continues to grow and gather attention. Social media sites spread information faster and wider than those institutions and methods historically limited to state-affiliated organizations. There are several characteristics that are unique to virtual space and make the production and dissemination of propaganda different; they include the Internet’s global reach, the recipient’s apparent trust placed in information source as well as the information sources, and the low cost of participation. Thus, the use of social media as a method to spread misleading information exploits trust relationships between the reader and the source. Although propaganda is a weapon with a long history in war, in the 21st century, the delivery and distribution of propaganda through the trusted channel of social media is markedly different than what was historically observed. We investigated the relationships among state-affiliated actors who use social media to produce and distribute propaganda along with their national cultural values. Prior research inferred a link between culture and social media usage (Hofstede et al., 2010; Sample & Karamanian 2014). Specifically, Hofstede et al. (2010) contended that cultures that are more masculine use the Internet for information seeking, whereas more feminine-oriented cultures use social media sites for sharing information, seeking to build better “trusting” relationships. We sought to explore whether masculine countries would leverage the trust relationships that are present with social media users to further the reach of state-affiliated propaganda. We built upon Bradshaw & Howard’s (2017) study on propaganda purveyors, which examined preferred social media deployment techniques across 29 different countries. Using previously published methods, we examined associations with culture using Hofestede’s scale. Since masculine countries have previously been associated with information-seeking behaviors, we sought to explore the potential that more masculine cultural values are associated with greater information-shaping and -distributing behaviors compared with more feminine cultural values. The results showed a strong difference in distributions, countries that deployed fake news via social media tended to have more masculine cultural values. Moderate differences were observed in other cultural values, purveyors of social media propaganda exhibited more authoritarianism and uncertainty avoidance. These findings suggest that specific cultural values associate with the distrubtion of fake news, indicating that culturally aware responses may be more effective when responding to these events

A cultural exploration of social media manipulators

Internet social media sites enable the rapid and widespread production and dissemi- nation of propaganda. Although propaganda has a long history in warfare, the spreading of propaganda via social media is markedly different from past distribution methods. The authors investigated the relationships between state-affiliated actors who use social media to produce and distribute propaganda and their national cultural values. The results showed that countries that deployed fake news via social media tended to have more masculine cultural values. These findings suggest that specific cultural values are associated with fake news distribution, which may indicate that culturally aware responses may be more effective in responding to propaganda

Social Psychology: An under-used tool in Cybersecurity

In cyber-security the weakest link is often seen as the human factor. This has led to discussions about the optimal methods in preventing cyber security breaches. This paper proposes that the fusion of cybersecurity and social psychology can inform and advance attempts to educate those on both sides of the law. Awareness and education will lead to more effective communication between parties and greater understanding of the risks and consequences for cyber attackers and defenders alike

Surveying the Hackers: The Challenges of Data Collection from a Secluded Community

There are various challenges with online data collection, from participant recruitment to ensuring the integrity and representativeness of the results; and when the data is being collected from hacking communities who value privacy the challenges become far more interesting. This study was carried out as part of an ongoing PhD project into online communities involved with hacking. This paper will discuss the resources used in designing and implementing internet-based data collection, especially with hard-to-engage participants. Data discussed has been collected via quantitative online surveys. Risks include becoming the target of a cyber-attack. Previous studies have found that research of this type is not universally welcomed in such private communities with reactions ranging from wary to hostile. The findings of this paper offer examples and areas of improvement for online research methodologies as well as reinforcing the importance of social psychological research and human factors within cyber security. The results are beneficial to those wanting to conduct their own online research in challenging areas, as well as those interested in online behaviour and hacking related topics

Teaching Psychological Principles to Cybersecurity Students

This paper will discuss our observations gained from teaching psychological principles and methods to undergraduate and postgraduate cybersecurity students. We will draw on and extend our previous work encouraging the teaching of psychology in computing and cybersecurity education. We pay special attention to the consideration of characteristics of cybersecurity students in terms of teaching psychology in a way that will be accessible and engaging. We then discuss the development and use of an online training tool which draws on psychology to help educators and companies to raise awareness of cybersecurity risks in students and employees. Finally, we offer some practical suggestions to incorporate psychology into the cybersecurity curriculum

Critical role for interferon regulatory factor 3 (IRF-3) and IRF-7 in type i interferon-mediated control of murine norovirus replication

Human noroviruses (HuNoV) are the major cause of epidemic, nonbacterial gastroenteritis in the world. The short course of HuNoV-induced symptoms has implicated innate immunity in control of norovirus (NoV) infection. Studies using murine norovirus (MNV) confirm the importance of innate immune responses during NoV infection. Type I alpha and beta interferons (IFN-α/β) limit HuNoV replicon function, restrict MNV replication in cultured cells, and control MNV replication in vivo. Therefore, the cell types and transcription factors involved in antiviral immune responses and IFN-α/β-mediated control of NoV infection are important to define. We used mice with floxed alleles of the IFNAR1 chain of the IFN-α/β receptor to identify cells expressing lysozyme M or CD11c as cells that respond to IFN-α/β to restrict MNV replication in vivo. Furthermore, we show that the transcription factors IRF-3 and IRF-7 work in concert to initiate unique and overlapping antiviral responses to restrict MNV replication in vivo. IRF-3 and IRF-7 restrict MNV replication in both cultured macrophages and dendritic cells, are required for induction of IFN-α/β in macrophages but not dendritic cells, and are dispensable for the antiviral effects of IFN-α/β that block MNV replication. These studies suggest that expression of the IFN-α/β receptor on macrophages/neutrophils and dendritic cells, as well as of IRF-3 and IRF-7, is critical for innate immune responses to NoV infection