The purpose of this study is to better understand the online black market economy, specifically relating to stolen data, using crime script analysis. Content analysis of 13 English and Russian-speaking stolen data forums found that the different products and services offered enabled the commodification of stolen data. The marketplace offers a range of complementary products, from the supply of hardware and software to steal data, the sale of the stolen data itself, to the provision of services to turn data into money, such as drops, cashiers and money laundering. The crime script analysis provides some insight into how the actors in these forums interact, and the actions they perform, from setting up software to finalising transactions and exiting the marketplace.

Underground forums contain many thousands of active users, but the vast majority will be involved, at most, in minor levels of deviance. The number who engage in serious criminal activity is small. That being said, underground forums have played a significant role in several recent high-profile cybercrime activities. In this work we apply data science approaches to understand criminal pathways and characterize key actors related to illegal activity in one of the largest and longestrunning underground forums. We combine the results of a logistic regression model with k-means clustering and social network analysis, verifying the findings using topic analysis. We identify variables relating to forum activity that predict the likelihood a user will become an actor of interest to law enforcement, and would therefore benefit the most from intervention. This work provides the first step towards identifying ways to deter the involvement of young people away from a career in cybercrime.

This research uses differential association, techniques of neutralization, and rational choice theory to study those who operate "booter services": websites that illegally offer denial-of-service attacks for a fee. Booter services provide "easy money" for the young males that run them. The operators claim they provide legitimate services for network testing, despite acknowledging that their services are used to attack other targets. Booter services are advertised through the online communities where the skills are learned and definitions favorable toward offending are shared. Some financial services proactively frustrate the provision of booter services, by closing the accounts used for receiving payments. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Phishing is the use of fraudulent emails to obtain personal financial information from victims by posing as legitimate financial institutions or commerce sites. This exploratory study involved interviewing 104 participants, 50 of whom reported having received a phishing email. The theoretical foundation for this research is Routine Activity Theory, whereby crime is considered to be the consequence of the presence of a motivated offender, the presence of a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian. One of the findings arising from this research indicates that potential victims who undertake high levels of routine activities relating to computer use and internet banking use are more likely to be attacked by motivated offenders. However, it is proposed that high measures in these variables also act as protective factors against subsequent victimisation. Additionally, email filters, although they may be effective in blocking a large number of spam emails, are unable to differentiate legitimate emails from some phishing attacks.

We evaluate the use of data obtained by illicit means against a broad set of ethical and legal issues. Our analysis covers both the direct collection, and secondary uses of, data obtained via illicit means such as exploiting a vulnerability, or unauthorized disclosure. We extract ethical principles from existing advice and guidance and analyse how they have been applied within more than recent peer reviewed papers that deal with illicitly obtained datasets. We find that existing advice and guidance does not address all of the problems that researchers have faced and explain how the papers tackle ethical issues inconsistently, and sometimes not at all. Our analysis reveals not only a lack of application of safeguards but also that legitimate ethical justifications for research are being overlooked. In many cases positive benefits, as well as potential harms, remain entirely unidentified. Few papers record explicit Research Ethics Board (REB) approval for the activity that is described and the justifications given for exemption suggest deficiencies in the REB process. CCS CONCEPTS •Social and professional topics → Computing profession; Codes of ethics; Computing / technology policy; •General and reference → Surveys and overviews; •Applied computing → Law; •Networks → Network privacy and anonymity;