Entanglement: cybercrime connections of a public forum population.

Many activities related to cybercrime operations do not require much secrecy, such as developing websites or translating texts. This research provides indications that many users of a popular public internet marketing forum have connections to cybercrime. It does so by investigating the involvement in cybercrime of a population of users interested in internet marketing, both at a micro and macro scale. The research starts with a case study of three users confirmed to be involved in cybercrime and their use of the public forum. It provides a first glimpse that some business with cybercrime connections is being conducted in the clear. The study then pans out to investigate the forum population's ties with cybercrime by finding crossover users, that is, users from the public forum who also comment on cybercrime forums. The cybercrime forums on which they discuss are analyzed and the crossover users' strength of participation is reported. Also, to assess if they represent a sub-group of the forum population, their posting behavior on the public forum is compared with that of non-crossover users. This blend of analyses shows that (i) a minimum of 7.2% of the public forum population are crossover users that have ties with cybercrime forums; (ii) their participation in cybercrime forums is limited; and (iii) their posting behavior is relatively indistinguishable from that of non-crossover users. This is the first study to formally quantify how users of an internet marketing public forum, a space for informal exchanges, have ties to cybercrime activities. We conclude that crossover users are a substantial part of the population in the public forum, and even though they have thus far been overlooked, their aggregate effect in the ecosystem must be considered. This study opens new research questions on cybercrime participation that should consider online spaces beyond their cybercrime branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]