Users’ psychopathologies: impact on cybercrime vulnerabilities and cybersecurity behavior

Abstract

The internet and digital technologies have become integral to people’s daily lives. The online world provides many benefits to billions of users globally. However, it also brings risks too, as it is easy for criminals to reach their victims and exploit their online behavior. Nevertheless, users often perform risky security behaviors for the sake of convenience and usability, and inadequate security awareness. With around 25% of the global population suffering with mental and/or neurological disorders, it is important to understand how users’ psychopathologies manifest in the cybersecurity context. This chapter has reviewed the symptoms of several mental disorders, while considering the online benefits and risks, and applied these symptoms to evaluate users’ vulnerability to cybercrimes, and cybersecurity practices. The findings reveal how the complexity of each mental disorder influences users’ online engagement, susceptibility to cybercrimes, and how uniquely they affect different cybersecurity behaviors to varying degrees.