The goal of the presentation is to develop a foundation for expanded collaborations both international and domestic, concerning cybersecurity, cybercrime, and parallel research. Decades of research document the issues and challenges in developing and sustaining partnerships between higher education and industry. A critical point of observation emerging from this body of research is tailoring those efforts towards pluralistic goals that allow for disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research and teaching opportunities. In this thematic panel, we will discuss a partnership between Washington State University and IBM in the areas of cybersecurity and cloud computing examining the developmental process and importance of developing and sustaining external research collaborations to maximize the benefits to both industry and higher education.

Trust plays a significant role in the process of drug trafficking on darknet markets (DNMs), it provides a safe environment both for customers and vendors. Measuring how it affects customer behavior can help law enforcement agencies and other professionals in designing effective prevention methods. Instead of asking DNM users directly, we created a situational survey where respondents find themselves in fictional situations about drug purchases. The survey was conducted among university students in Hungary (n=5481) to reach those who have knowledge about the harmful effects of illicit drugs, a better understanding of the legal consequences of the use and trafficking of illicit drugs, or a higher level of expertise in computer and info-communication. The results confirmed the significance of the 21 trust factors identified in online drug purchases and demonstrated how expertise affects the importance of the specific trust factors. The reliable delivery of products was the most important trust factor for all respondents, calling for a direct examination of the potentially affected delivery services. Research among deliverers can contribute to the development of targeted crime prevention strategies.

Cyber-enabled crime has become more prevalent and is quickly evolving the threat landscape of illicit firearms and drug trafficking in Canada. It is crucial to determine the characteristics of the most successful offenders that have shifted their activity to dark web illicit firearms and drug markets as a means to assist law enforcement to identify and prioritize these types of targets. Whereas the vast majority of previous research on illicit cryptomarkets has focussed on the products or the marketplaces on the dark web, research on the people – their social interactions and demographic behavior – is still in its infancy. The current study aimed to extend the methodological framework of measuring consumer trust in the online illicit drug trade developed by Kiss, Parti, and Prazsák (2019) for the illicit firearms cryptomarkets and within the context of Canada. Using a set of surveys, one aimed toward darknet market users, and one aimed toward university students, we assessed which trust factors based on specific scenario questions were most important in purchasing illicit goods online. Results indicate that while certain trust factors are always of high importance, individuals with certain areas of expertise may consider specific trust factors as having a greater degree of importance. While only a couple of our hypotheses were supported, results from this study have aided in our understanding of trust mechanisms at play within these darknet markets.

In this descriptive paper, we compare basic cybercrime offending and victimization characteristics in the United States and two European countries: Finland, and Hungary; countries with different societal, economic, and political compositions. The three nations are all economically developed, yet they have different socioeconomic conditions (e.g., average income per capita, internet penetration rates, mobile telephone, and social media use), which can influence both their vulnerabilities to cybercrime and level of preparedness to avoid cyber incidents (e.g., level of knowledge about computers and internet-related threats, type and number of technical and personal safeguards applied online, etc.). The three countries also have different levels of trust (World Value Survey 2020), which can influence both victim vulnerabilities and the willingness to report cyber incidents to the police or internet providers. Furthermore, socialization can be very different in the three countries due to the different political and educational histories. The US is a traditional democracy with a capitalist economy, that promotes personal independence where norm-conforming behavior can be undermined by individualism and personal goals. Patterns and prevalence of cybercrimes and cyber victimizations such as cyber harassment, phishing, credit card fraud, hacking, illegal downloading, identity theft, illegal drug purchase, and sexting will be compared. The survey was taken on national samples of 1,300 residents, representative by age, sex (Hungary, Finland), and race (US) in Spring, 2022. After comparing country characteristics in cybercrime, we offer feasible explanations of the outcomes, emphasizing that criminal policy must take into consideration societal, economic, and political characteristics. Sponsor: CEUTTSS, Virginia Tech.