Professor and Chair Co-Guest Edited Special Issue: New Directions in Cybercrime Research for Journal of Crime & Justice

April 9, 2020

Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Dr. Adam Bossler, served as a co-guest editor for a special issue (December 2019) on “New Directions in Cybercrime Research” for Journal of Crime & Justice. The articles that appeared in the special issue came from presentations that occurred at the first annual Conference on the Human Factor in Cybercrime held at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel in October 2018.  In addition, he solo-authored a manuscript for the special issue entitled, “Perceived formal and informal sanctions on the willingness to commit cyber attacks against domestic and foreign targets.”

Abstract:

Scholars have expressed concerns over the effectiveness of formal sanctions in deterring cybercrime, particularly regarding computer intrusions and cyber attacks.  Little empirical research, however, examines deterrence in the cyber world.  This study examines the effects of perceived formal and informal sanctions, computer skill, online behaviors, cyber deviance, and beliefs on college students’ willingness to commit cyber attacks against domestic and foreign targets, specifically defacing websites, compromising bank servers, and searching government servers.  The study found that anticipated formal sanctions did not deter students from their willingness to commit caused-based cyber attacks, but that perceived informal sanctions did.  The implications for future studies examined intentions to commit cause-based computer intrusions are explored.