Abstract
The development of cyberspace has brought about innumerable advantages for the mankind. However, it also came with several serious drawbacks; as cyberspace evolves, so does cybercrime. Since the birth of cyberspace, individuals, groups and whole nations have been engaging in computer-related offences of various significance and impact, trying to exploit systems’ vulnerabilities, disseminate malicious software and steal data or funds. The concept of a hacker has entered the collective consciousness and become an intrinsic element of popular culture. However, there are hackers, or rather, cyberspace actors, who challenge this common view. This paper presents three types of such people, namely hacktivists, members of cyber militias and Internet trolls. Although they all use the Internet to break the laws or rules, their internal motivations are not always utterly sinister; actually, some of them firmly believe that their actions are for the greater good. This paper is structured as follows: Firstly, the general profile of a hacker is presented. Then, the state of the art is outlined, concerning other papers dealing with the motivations behind cyber threat actors. Following that, the three aforementioned groups of cyberspace actors are contrasted with the profile of a ‘typical’ hacker. Then, the profiles of a typical representative for each of the group and their motivations are indicated, followed by the final conclusions.
Highlights
The development of cyberspace has brought about innumerable advantages for the mankind
It came with several serious drawbacks; as cyberspace evolves, so does cybercrime
This paper presents three types of such people, namely hacktivists, members of cyber militias and
Summary
The development of cyberspace has brought about innumerable advantages for the mankind. They all use the Internet to break the laws or rules, their internal motivations are not always utterly sinister; some of them firmly believe that their actions are for the greater good. This paper is structured as follows: Firstly, the general profile of a hacker is presented. The three aforementioned groups of cyberspace actors are contrasted with the profile of a ‘typical’ hacker. The main contribution of this paper is concentrating on the hackers and actors who are ‘the stray sheep’ of cyberspace, i.e., the ones who are either misguided, ignorant or feel so strongly about something that they rationalise their actions, rather than ‘typical’ wrongdoers, who break the rules in full knowledge and with malicious intent
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