Submitted by Rachel Gardner on Thu, 08/06/2023 - 11:27
A talk by the FBI on their collaborative approach to investigating cybercriminals. A new approach to studying the relationship between autism and cybercrime. And an analysis of how effective online ad campaigns are in protecting at-risk users from denial of service attacks. These are among the talks on the agenda at the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre annual conference this month.
This is the sixth annual Cybercrime Conference organised by the Centre. It takes place here at the William Gates Building on Thursday 22 June.
The Cambridge Cybercrime Centre, which is based in this Department, hosts and shares some very substantial cybercrime datasets. It both mines and correlates them to extract information about criminal activity and makes them available to fellow researchers working in the field.
This interdisciplinary conference will showcase some of the research that is being conducted by domestic and international institutions based on these datasets.
The day will kick off with a talk by Elliott R Peterson from the Federal Bureau of Investigation on ‘Hunting in pack(et)s – cybercrime investigation as a team sport’.
Through a backdrop of several recent investigations, including botnet takedowns and seizures of DDoS-for-hire services, Elliott Peterson will discuss a multidisciplinary approach to cybercrime investigations through proactive partnerships between government, private sector, and academic institutions.
It will be followed by a talk titled ' "You think you’d get laid if it wasn’t for advancements in technology?” – A sociological analysis of marginalised masculinity in Incel communities'.
Given by Jade Hutchinson (Macquarie University and University of Groningen), it will focus on how Involuntary Celibates (Incel) communities “encompass an expanding network of social networking spaces, and research suggests socio-technical factors facilitate Incel movement toward violent extremism”.
"Men and masculinities studies,” Jade says, “should be applied to better understand and prevent the propagation of Incel ideology and violence.”
An MPhil student from this Department is next on the programme. Jessica Monteith will discuss ‘An analysis of conversations on cybercrime forums in the context of autism’.
She explains that “there have been many studies into the relationship between autism and cybercrime, many from a psychological angle, some using a systematic approach to combine analysis on autistic traits and cybercriminal characteristics.”
In her talk, she will present her work, which she says is “the first to use underground forum data to find out if actors who associate themselves with autism are more or less likely to engage in cybercrime-related conversations than other actors”.
Other topics covered during the day include a discussion of whether European law enforcement agencies’ use of online ad campaigns to raise cybercrime awareness among at-risk populations is proving effective.
There will also be a talk – entitled ‘No easy way out’ – on the effectiveness of deplatforming an extremist forum to suppress hate and harassment.
The conference is of interest to anyone working in the fields of cybersecurity and/or cybercrime. The programme is available at https://www.cambridgecybercrime.uk/conference2023.html
Those wishing to attend (virtually or in-person) can register here: https://onlinesales.admin.cam.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/computer-laboratory/cambridge-cybercrime-conference/cambridge-cybercrime-conference-22-june-2023
