Risky digital behavior or risky digital places? Victimization risk perception and evaluation on the internet

ABSTRACT

This study applies context-based approaches to victimization risk perception in digital spaces. Vignettes are randomly assigned to a convenience sample of internet users and analyzed to determine how digital location and user behavior affects perceived likelihood of malware victimization and objective risk evaluation. Means-differences tests between conjoint treatment groups show statistically significant differences on all dependent variables between respondents who received high risk site/high risk behavior scenarios and those who received low risk site/low risk behavior scenarios. Internet users’ risk perception is affected both by location in digital space and user behavior, but these effects vary when measured in a conjoint scenario. In the context of online victimization, the findings suggest that internet users’ risk perceptions are influenced by behavior regardless of location. This conclusion supports prior research suggesting that digital victimology should examine specific behaviors on the internet such as information-sharing, rather than types of websites visited, to better understand how individuals navigate victimization risk in digital space.

KEYWORDS:

• Cybervictimization
• fear of crime
• risk perception
• digital criminology

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Erin Kearns for her oversight and assistance with the design for the dataset used in this study. Additionally, Dr. Pam Wilcox, Dr. Holly Nguyen, and Alexander Chapman for their extensive review and comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rachel L. McNealey

Dr. Rachel McNealey is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice in the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice with her Ph.D. in criminology from Penn State University. Her research focuses on cybervictimization events and cyberoffending behavior, with the goal of tying new forms of crime to traditional criminological theories. Her work has been published in the Journal of Crime and Justice, the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency. Her experience also includes working in the digital forensics lab at the Joint Electronic Crimes Task Force in Tuscaloosa, Alabama as well as the Network Intrusion Lab and security group Project Halo. Her work aims to investigate emerging forms of crime with established methods and theories to produce actionable, practice-oriented findings.

Adam Ghazi-Tehrani

Adam Ghazi-Tehrani is an Associate Professor in the Criminology and Criminal Justice department (with specializations in cyber-crime and white-collar crime) at the University of Alabama. Adam holds a BA from the University of California at Davis, an MS from the California State University at Long Beach, and both MA and PhD degrees from the University of California at Irvine. He is interested in regulatory, compliance, governmental, and societal factors on cyber and white-collar offenses. His past work has discovered (or uncovered and explained) hidden crimes such as food adulteration, an attempt by the Chinese political apparatus to cover up a high-speed train crash, and ongoing virtual threats from state-sponsored cyber actors. His current work examines international legal issues that allow for the ongoing global cyber offenses, as well as the domestic regulatory and compliance issues in the United States that allow private companies to remain vulnerable, and the effects of both on global trade and security. His most recent publications include the book Wayward Dragon: White-Collar and Corporate Crime in China, an article on the cyber-crime phishing in Victims & Offenders, as well as an article on the media and bias crimes in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.