Document:
What’s in a Name? Cultural Observations on Nationally Named Hacking Groups

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Submitted By Patrick Maroney on 2019-11-22 7:00 pm UTC

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OASIS Threat Actor Context (TAC) TC / Administration

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Abstract: Culture’s role in cognition has long been established, but understanding national culture’s role in
cyber events currently remains an understudied research area. Michael Minkov observed that culture
influences thought; even when people think they are in control, cultural biases are actually controlling their
thoughts. Cultural values endure, and because they do, these cultural values leave artifacts can be revealed in
thought patterns. This philosophy serves as a foundation for further work in progress on name choices by
hackers. In this study, we examined 10 years’ worth of Zone-H archives where hacker names that identified
with national identities were analysed using Hofstede’s cultural framework to determine whether culture may
play a role in hacker name and name choices. The findings revealed cultural preferences in several of the six
cultural dimensions. In addition, trending the results showed significant findings in two cultural dimensions: (1)
masculinity versus femininity and (2) uncertainty avoidance. The results suggest that assumptions about the
anonymous nature of the Internet influencing behaviours may not be universally applicable, and that culture
should also be considered when evaluating cyber actor behaviours.