MOTIVATIONS OF THE CYBER
CRIMINAL: A CRIMINOLOGICAL
THEORY APPROACH
CAITLIN V. M. CORNELIUS, PHD
VIRGINIA MODELING ANALYSIS AND SIMULATION CENTER
OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY
TODAY’S PRESENTATION
• Introduction
• Demographics of Offenders
• Typology of Offenders
• Relevant Criminological Theories
• Future Research
INTRODUCTION
• Cyber crime and cyber terrorism represents a significant threat to global
security interests and results in losses and damages every year.
• Criminology is an underutilized tool for understanding cyber crime
• The motivations of this type of criminal could hold the key to devising
strategies for reducing this type of crime.
DEMOGRAPHICS OF OFFENDERS
• Mostly Male
• Outcasts/Non-Mainstream
• Mid 20’s age range for most activity (although there are anomalies)
• Interact better on-line rather than in person
• “disease prone” rather than “self-healing”
• “Type A” personalities; perfectionists, task-oriented
TYPOLOGY OF OFFENDERS
• Typologies most often created via the type of crime being examined:
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Hackers
Online Harassers
Software/Hardware Pirates
Scammers
TYPOLOGY OF OFFENDERS
• Many typologies of offenders exist, but generally fall into similar categories:
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The Wannabes “Script Kiddies”
The Scammers-too good to be true offers, send money to make money
Legit Hackers-have skills, work in groups or alone
Phishers-fake login pages, enter personal info to get things
Political Groups/Foreign Governments
Insiders (Insider threat)
TYPOLOGY OF OFFENDERS
• Typology of cyber criminal motivations:
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The thrill seeker/boredom killer
The control freak/out-smarter/game player
The political/religious zealot
The money maker
The sexual deviant
THEORIES
• Routine Activities Theory: Cohen and Felson (1979)
• Motivated offender + Suitable Target + Absence of capable guardian = Crime
• Particularly useful in explaining the occurrence of:
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Online-Harassment
Malware Victimization
THEORIES
• Strain Theory: Robert Merton (1938), Scott Agnew (1992)
• (Stress associated with socially constructed goals) + (lack of legitimate opportunities to
achieve these goals, and/or, roadblocks in the achievement of these) = crime
• Social Learning Theory: Akers (1968)
• Crime is a learned behavior, the learning process occurs in intimate groups, the learning
includes techniques of committing the crime and motives/rationalizations/justifications:
• Digital and software piracy
• Hacking
THEORIES
• Techniques of Neutralization: Sykes and Matza (1964)
• Crime results when internal mechanisms of control fail
• Originally used to explain street gang behavior, applicable to cyber crime (specifically
hacker) subgroups
• General Theory of Crime: Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990)
• Crime occurs because of lack of self-control
FUTURE RESEARCH
• Many of the typologies and theories discussed pair well together and should
be the basis of future studies
• The street gang theories/literature applicable to hacker groups
• The strain theories applicable to outsiders/those that find it difficult to interact “in real
life”
FUTURE RESEARCH
• Further investigation needed; replication of previously conducted studies as
starting point
• Street crime/gang studies
• Effective control mechanisms (policing and policy implementation)
• Further synthesize the typologies, operationalize variables and characteristics,
employ uniform terminology