BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE OF INDIVIDUALS TO CYBER ATTACKS

Abstract

The idea of the present research “Behavioral Response of Individuals to Cyber Attacks” came when we began to come across the stories of cyber-attacks as a part of daily routine. We as an individual might not even know how vulnerable our important data is to the outside world and what data has already been leaked off our system while we just relax and without worry carry our work, tasks, scrooge over some entertainment stuff, e.g., games, movies, songs, etc. and within a nick of a second, we might get ourselves entrapped into the clever pitfall sewn by hacking agencies or agencies with malicious intent. The first time this idea of taking “Behavioral Response of Individuals to Cyber Attacks” when we heard about the troublesome Ransomware attacks that basically took over the control of millions of user’s systems or workstations imposing a virtual lock on the top of file or directory system disabling access unless user pays heavy ransom to unlock the lock and get their data back. This attack is just a sand grain in the dessert and there are myriad other examples that revolves around the news almost every single day wherein attacks of this nature can jeopardize the victims’ data and their identity and even critical data stored in the system, such as, the user session logged in to any personal account may get freeze into the hands of cyber attacker at the expanse of attacker’s advantage (and the attacker may even change the credentials of user’s account). Through this research paper, we do not intend to algorithmically and with crypto science solve the cyberattacks against their digital signature and come up with techniques that antivirus engine deploys in its software to potentially block any breach, but we will target the user’s perception based on impact the attack has left in an individual’s day-to-day life of their engagement with the system. The paper is meant to capture the sentiment of the user as in the effect of the cause in user’s mind and the immediate response of user towards the entity wherein they think the root of the problem lies, the user’s perception about the system or platform when the attack happens, the probable cause (or entity) upon which user’s displays their anger as an immediate response as per their own assumption where things might have gone wrong and the emotional behavior exhibited unbeknownst to user’s knowledge when the attack leave their data or system exposed.