Exploring Masculinities and Perceptions of Gender in Online Cybercrime Subcultures

Bada, Maria; Chua, Yi Ting; Collier, Ben; Pete, Ildiko

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-60527-8_14

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…1) Qualitative methods: Several qualitative methods have been used to better understand underground forums. Thematic Analysis involves generating themes that describe the analysed posts [5]; it has been used to discover perceptions of gender [4], to contrast types of online money laundering schemes [43], and for analysing topics discussed by members who cross from one forum to another [21], [48]. Crime script analysis involves breaking complex crime types down into a series of steps.…”

Section: Methods Usedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…• Analysis of language can help us to identify cybersecurity related words or posts for threat intelligence [14], to extract neologisms [37], to carry out authorship attribution and duplicate account detection [2], or to identify dark jargon [59], [73], [60]. • Exploring of the perception of gender, given the role played by misogyny in some crime types and criminal subcultures [4]. • Automatic classification of discussions based on post type and sentiment [10], or for cyber threat intelligence [72].…”

Section: A Areas Of Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

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PostCog: A tool for interdisciplinary research into underground forums at scale

Pete

Hughes

Caines

et al. 2022

2022 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW)

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Underground forums provide useful insights into cybercrime, where researchers analyse underlying economies, key actors, their discussions and interactions, as well as different types of cybercrime. This interdisciplinary topic of study incorporates expertise from diverse areas, including computer science, criminology, economics, psychology, and other social sciences. Historically, there were significant challenges around access to data, but there are now research datasets of millions of messages scraped from underground forums. The problems now stem from the size of these datasets and the technical nature of methods and tools available for data sampling and analysis at scale, which make data exploration difficult for non-technical users. POSTCOG has been developed to solve this problem. We first provide a survey of prior work into underground forums; this was used to understand the requirements and functionalities valued by researchers, and to inform the design of a data exploration tool. We then describe POSTCOG, a web application developed to support users from both technical and non-technical backgrounds in forum analyses, such as search, information extraction and cross-forum comparison. The prototype's usability is then evaluated through two user studies with expert users of the CRIMEBB dataset. POSTCOG is made available for academic research upon signing an agreement with the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre.

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Section: Methods Usedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Areas Of Focusmentioning

confidence: 99%

PostCog: A tool for interdisciplinary research into underground forums at scale

Pete

Hughes

Caines

et al. 2022

2022 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW)

Self Cite

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“…A large amount of research has focused on the social networks within forums, such as looking at the interaction patterns between users [16], [17]. Research has also been done to analyse the different types of common topics found in the forums, such as the perception of gender and the use of misogyny in the forums [18].…”

Section: A Cybercrime Forums and Pathways To Cybercrimementioning

confidence: 99%

Hacker's Paradise: Analysing Music in a Cybercrime Forum

Talas,

Hutchings

2023

2023 APWG Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime)

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Underground cybercrime forums have numerous discussion boards where users interact with each other. The majority of the topics revolve around technology, but a substantial number also discuss everyday topics and interests, including music. The aim of this research is to analyse the musical content posted on a large English-language underground forum to understand what types of musical content is shared, if the lyrics glamorise cybercrime, and if those who post musical content also post more about criminal activity. We find little evidence of the glamorisation of cybercrime. However, lyrics often depict a 'gangster' lifestyle, including the promotion of violence. We find that users who post on music boards post significantly less criminal content elsewhere on the forum, however when broken down by crime type they are significantly more likely to post about eWhoring and trading credentials than other forum users. We evaluate the performance of Google's Perspective API in detecting toxic content in music lyrics. We find the toxicity classifier was able to detect toxic speech to an extent, but was not particularly reliable. In exploring this further, we find a bug, in that the classifier only takes the first 501 characters as input, providing a way to evade the detection of toxic content.Content Warning: This research paper contains example forum posts, which contain graphic/explicit language that some readers might find upsetting. Please contact the author if you would prefer to read the article with toxic content removed.

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“…A gendered analysis of cybercrime is also important (Bada et al, 2021), especially because the online space can house hidden gendered power dimensions (Lindén, 2022). Of recent, there has been a push for the application of feminist theories to define, theorise and explore cybercrimes, seeing as cybercrime and cybersecurity have been male-dominated fields (Phillips et al, 2022).…”

Section: Facet 3: Infrastructural Sensitivity To User Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Men similarly experience harms online, including image-based sexual violence (Walker et al, 2019). Given the unique pressures experienced by men to disclose any experience of victimisation or seeking support (Addis & Mahalik, 2003;Widanaralalage et al, 2022), the differential and unique impacts of gender cannot be understated, as these are visible in many ways (Bada et al, 2021;Coopamootoo, 2022;Redmiles et al, 2017). One current and important UK government initiative to address Violence Against Women And Girls 8 in digital technology is the Digital, Data and Technology Directorate of the NCA with the aim to address sexism and misogyny in cyberspace.…”

Section: Facet 3: Infrastructural Sensitivity To User Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Cybercrimes in the aftermath of COVID-19: Present concerns and future directions

Ng¹,

Widanaralalage²,

Buchanan³

et al. 2022

JCD

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Cybercrimes are broadly defined as criminal activities carried out using computers or computer networks. Given the rapid and considerable shifts in Internet use and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cybercrime rates, online behaviours have attracted increased public and policy attention. In this article, we map the landscape of cybercrime in the UK by first reviewing legislation and policy, as well as examine barriers to reporting and address investigative challenges. Given the indisputable rise in cybercrime and its mental health impacts, we propose a four-facet approach for research and practice in this field with an eye to systemic shifts and strategies to combat cybercrime holistically: community alliances and social support, state intervention, and infrastructural sensitivity to user diversity. Lastly, empirical evidence from research guides the design of data-driven technology and provision of advice/interventions to provide a safer digital landscape -hence the importance for more informative research.

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Exploring Masculinities and Perceptions of Gender in Online Cybercrime Subcultures

Cited by 6 publications

References 31 publications

PostCog: A tool for interdisciplinary research into underground forums at scale

PostCog: A tool for interdisciplinary research into underground forums at scale

Hacker's Paradise: Analysing Music in a Cybercrime Forum

Cybercrimes in the aftermath of COVID-19: Present concerns and future directions

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