NESTA Crime Online - University of Brighton Repository

Traditionally, hackers have been depicted as individuals who work in isolation but in
competition with each other, and who are passionate about their particular area of
malicious interest and prepared to devote enormous time and energy to developing their
ideas and implementing them. Hackers often share their ideas in user communities and
many such communities are characterised by an open sharing of ideas and innovations,
termed ‘free revealing’. 132 Innovative users are often seen as a significant agent of
technological change although such change may not always be welcomed by society.
For example, hackers may well be the leading edge of a market trend and conform to
the notion of lead users. 133 However, in other cases they may act more like a subversive
group whose aim is to break technical and legal boundaries. Coupled with the
magnifying effect of the Internet their influence will be increased by free revealing,
enabling a relatively small number of technically able individuals to have an impact on
society that is disproportionate to their numbers or social and professional positions.
However, new evidence suggests that hackers and malware writers are moving away
from working individually or in groups with common goals, to gradually enter the
hierarchical structure of cybercrime organisations, where they have their own well-
defined role and reward system. 134 This is further explored in the sections below.
It is also likely that there are relatively few attackers, exploit and malicious code
developers. Due to the technical nature of these skills, fewer individuals are adept at
conducting attacks, doing security research, or developing exploit code and attack
tools. 135
2.1.1.2 Infection and distribution
The second activity involves the distribution of detected vulnerabilities (such as
malware) and the subsequent infection of computer systems. Hackers and malware
132 Harhoff, D., Henkel, J., & von Hippel, E. (2003). Profiting from voluntary information spillovers: how users
benefit by freely revealing their innovations. Research Policy. 32 (10), 1753-1769.
133 Von Hippel, E., 1986. Lead Users: A Source of Novel Product Concepts, Management Science, 32 (7), July,
pp791-805.
134 Finjan Malicious Code Research Centre, (2008). Web Security Trends Report Q2 2008. See
www.globalsecuritymag.com/Finjan-Discovers-Compromised, 20080506, 2911.
135 Symantec, (2008), “Symantec Report on the Underground Economy”, July 07–June 08.
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