Understanding the Relationship Between Cybercrime and Human Behavior Through Criminological Theories and Social Networking Sites

This article seeks to gain a better understanding of how to address some of the challenges in the digital world. In order to do this, the authors presented some of the emerging issues in the psychology of human behavior and the ever changing nature of cyber threats in the digital world. They reviewed both the theories of crime (i.e., self-control and rational choice theories) and the empirical studies that have examined user behavior on social networking sites leading to victimization. Importantly, they mentioned the role of social engineering as the entry point of many of these sophisticated attacks. They went on to examine the relevance of the human element as the starting point of implementing cyber security programs in organizations as well as securing individual online behavior. Furthermore, issues that are associated with the emerging trends in human behavior research as well as ethics were also discussed. They acknowledge that much more academic attention is needed in this area to avoid the exponential growth of future information breaches.