EAGER: Collaborative: Winning the Internet Lottery: Growing Income Inequality, Social Class, and Susceptibility to Cybercrime

随着数字鸿沟的缩小，越来越多的群体可以使用互联网，网络安全成为一个日益重要的问题。随着互联网提供的连接性，连接到互联网的设备之间存在固有的相互依赖性。被破坏的设备被用于各种形式的网络犯罪（例如，垃圾邮件活动），可以影响整个互联网。因此，为了增加网络安全，了解某些群体可能更容易受到网络犯罪影响的方式和程度是很重要的。以前的研究主要集中在年龄、性别、职业和STEM背景水平等因素如何影响一个人？美国人对网络犯罪（即网络钓鱼攻击）的易感性，然而，很少有工作关注社会阶层因素如何影响网络犯罪的易感性。这个项目的重点是了解新的社会因素，这些因素可能会使特定群体或多或少地受到网络犯罪的影响（特别是强调经济发展机会的网络钓鱼攻击）。该项目的预期结果将影响网络安全领域和社会学领域。从网络安全的角度来看，了解特定人群是否不成比例地受到在线攻击的影响可以导致：1)预防措施（例如，提供政府补贴宽带接入的互联网服务提供商也可以提供网络安全培训）；2)识别网络犯罪生态系统的发育点，如果及早发现并解决，可以使整个网络空间更加安全。从社会学角度来说，关注社会阶层是否会影响网络犯罪的易感性，有助于突出一些以前未被充分研究的经济不平等后果。

As the digital divide closes and more groups have access to the Internet, cybersafety is an increasingly relevant issue. With the connectivity provided by the Internet comes an inherent interdependency between devices connected to the Internet. Compromised devices are used in various forms of cybercrime (e.g., spam campaigns) that can affect the Internet as a whole. Thus, to increase cybersecurity, it is important to understand the ways and extent to which certain groups may be more susceptible to Internet crime. Previous studies have focused on how factors such as age, gender, occupation, and level of STEM background affect one?s susceptibility to Internet crime (i.e., phishing attacks), however little work has focused on how social class factors into Internet crime susceptibility. This project focuses on understanding new sociological factors that may render particular groups more or less likely to be affected by cybercrime (in particular, phishing attacks that highlight opportunities for economic advancement). The expected results from this project impact both the fields of cybersecurity and sociology. From a cybersecurity perspective, understanding whether particular demographics are disproportionately affected by online attacks can lead to: 1) efforts for prevention (e.g., Internet Service Providers that offer government subsidized broadband access can also provide cybersafety training); and 2) the identification of the spawning point of a cybercrime ecosystem, which if caught and addressed early, can make cyberspace at large more secure. Sociologically speaking, attention to whether social class influences susceptibility to cybercrime helps to highlight some of the previously understudied consequences of economic inequality.