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

随着数字鸿沟的缩小，越来越多的群体能够使用互联网，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。受损设备用于各种形式的网络犯罪（例如，垃圾邮件活动），这可能会影响整个互联网。因此，为了加强网络安全，必须了解某些群体更容易受到互联网犯罪影响的方式和程度。以前的研究集中在年龄，性别，职业和STEM背景水平等因素如何影响一个人？对互联网犯罪的敏感性（即，网络钓鱼攻击），但很少有工作集中在社会阶层的因素如何影响互联网犯罪的易感性。该项目侧重于了解可能使特定群体或多或少受到网络犯罪影响的新的社会学因素（特别是突出经济发展机会的网络钓鱼攻击）。该项目的预期成果将影响网络安全和社会学领域。从网络安全的角度来看，了解特定的人口统计数据是否受到在线攻击的不成比例的影响可以导致：1）预防工作（例如，提供政府补贴的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）确定网络犯罪生态系统的滋生点，如果及早发现和解决，可以使整个网络空间更加安全。从社会学角度讲，关注社会阶层是否影响网络犯罪的易感性有助于突出一些以前未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.