Cong, G., Jianfeng, M., Jingjing, G., Liang, Z., & Xindi, M. (2013). The Inside of Information Security Industry in the Perspective of Hackers and Economics. Journal Of Engineering Science & Technology Review, 6(3), 146-152.
With the advent of many markets a criminal element will move in to exploit the growth. The cybersecurity realm is no different. The paper outlines the hacker economy around the collection and commercialization of user information. The paper first covers the various ways hackers or cyber attackers have come up with to obtain the user information. From there the paper covers how the information is used to attain money, the structure of the hacker economy and finishes with a discussion of possible countermeasures.
The overall paper offers good information, but focuses vary narrowly on the hacker economy built up around the exploitation of user information economy. There is no coverage on the selling of exploit tools, zombie networks, 0day vulnerabilities, etc. So this will add information on the consumer impact during the period of internet growth but I will need additional content for a fuller picture. This paper covered a number of concepts that I already understood, however the paper was a source of key reference statistics I have not been able to find in other areas.
What knowledge did you gain about your topic as a result of the research you’ve conducted so far?
The use case executed with this paper has been the first statistics I have been able to find that covers the impact of both technology and education have on users being exploited.
What new search strategies did you use to locate your sources? Be specific and refer to the notes you took.
I don’t normally search specifically for academic papers. So targeting information contained in them was a different approach. Typically, my searches are targeted and locating content in the body of the content. I found that searching more for titles was a better way to find the content I was looking for.
What specific aspect of your topic do you want to research further
This paper focused on personal information leakage. I would like to look at other impacts such as the rise and fall of Denial of Service attacks.
Brian Laing,
ReplyDeleteI find your latest post, Looking for Peer Review Content for Research Topic, to be fascinating. Partly due to it’s subject “the hacker community… and collection and commercialization of user information”, but also because you don’t have much experience with academic research either. First, I have been amazed on that extraordinary measures hackers go to in order to harvest information. It seems every day there is a new breach mentioned in newspapers or on the news. I never realized hackers could profit from selling exploit tools to aid in this process either. You made me want to research this further just out of curiosity! Finally, I relate to your unfamiliarity with conducting academic research. I also used to mostly perform targeted searches. Now, thanks to this class, I feel like my research is far more effective. My new research strategies have made me far more effective and efficient.
Best of luck to you in your future research,
-Megan