Coming to eCrime 2024 Boston: Relationships Matter: Reconstructing the Organizational and Social Structure of a Ransomware Gang

Dalya Manatova investigates the organizational and social dynamics within a profitable ransomware group. By analyzing extensive chat logs leaked from the group, the study aims to understand the extent to which “organized” cybercrime is truly organized and how the groups structure contributes to its resilience. The research employs qualitative coding of conversations to relationships, roles and operational processes within the group. A social graph is constructed to map the group membership structure and evolution of such relationships over time. The study also empirically tests whether the group exhibits a hierarchical organizational pattern based on workflow, mentorship, and friendship relationships among members. The study aims to provide insights into the complex interplay of actors and their roles within the group’s cybercriminal activities, ultimately informing strategies to target and disrupt similar clandestine groups. #ecrime2024

About the Investigator

Dalya Manatova, currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Security Informatics at Indiana University and honored as an Ostrom Fellow, is exploring the organizational and social dynamics within cybercriminal and outlawed communities, and methods to inform cyber threat intelligence.

Please join Dalya and other members of counter-cybercrime avant garde at APWG eCrime 2024 Boston next month. APWG eCrime presents research into every aspect of cybercrime — from tracking anonymous criminals across the cyberspace to phisher’s exploitation of Gmail notification systems to provoke responses to their lures.

This year's Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime 2024) explores the theme of taking back cyberspace from the criminal plexus — as framed by pioneering figures of our time. APWG eCrime 2024 Boston will examine technological exposures, policy aspects, economic foundations, and behavioral elements that fuel the multi-billion-dollar cybercrime plexus, searching for those catalyzing, organizing questions that will help turn the tide against cybercrime.

eCrime 2024’s program includes globe-leading cybercrime industry interveners and researchers — as well as plenary addresses by cybersecurity legend Bruce Schneier, fellow to the Harvard Kennedy School’s Berkman Klein Center, and Internet engineering trailblazer David Clark of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

INQUIRIES can be forwarded to: [email protected]

The eCrime agenda: https://apwg.org/event/ecrime2024/

The ticket registration console is at the top right of this page.

NOTE: Discount ticket codes for eCrime 2024 are available for unsubsidized university researchers,  NGO members and personnel, government personnel, law enforcement personnel and some trade association members. Delegates from those organizations can contact the event organizers at [email protected].

The accommodations registration page for the eCrime 2024’s conference hotel is here with instructions to reserve at the discounted symposium rate:

https://apwg.org/apwg-ecrime-2024-accommodations/