The organizational aspects of hacktivist networks are seldom studied, withresearch mainly focused on exploratory and descriptive case studies. Tonarrow the gap, we have used the sociological model for the social organiza-tion of deviants developed by Best and Luckenbill (1994). Said model illus-trates how hacktivist networks are organized and contributes to a clear-cutcategorization useful when dealing with hacktivism. Our study uses a richdataset obtained from 32 semi-structured qualitative interviews conductedwithin 23 different networks. By expanding on past research on cybercrim-inal and hacktivist networks, the results show that hacktivists operate atvarying levels of sophistication, favoring small, well-organized teams whereroles and tasks are clearly divided. While there are differences among net-works, our analysis reveals the importance of individual actions within largeroperations: being affiliated with like-minded people, the existence of internalrules, and the importance of hacking skills to determine, if not hierarchies,then who is the most influential. Most of the networks analyzed wereclassified as “peers” or “teams,” although the landscape shows considerableheterogeneity. Compared to other cybercriminal networks, hacktivists seemto have lower level of sophistication, while embracing the hacking subcul-ture that places importance on the role of the individual within the network.
Document
OpenAccess
