Hackers often engage in website defacement early in their criminal careers to establish a reputation. Some hackers become increasingly prolific and launch a large number of attacks against their targets, whereas others only launch a few attacks before eventually desisting from a life of crime. A better understanding of why some hackers launch a large number of attacks, while others do not, will assist in the implementation of targeted intervention strategies. Therefore, the current study, using a sample of 119 active hackers, seeks to answer two research questions: (1) Are there different groups of website defacers based on attack volume? (2) Which observed hacker-level characteristics can be used to predict latent class membership? We find that two unique groups of website defacers exist: low-volume defacers (69%) and high-volume defacers (31%). Social media presence, the content of the defacement, and the type of defacement are all predictive of latent class membership. Policy implications are discussed.

黑客通常在犯罪生涯的早期就进行网站毁损以建立声誉。一些黑客变得越来越多产，对他们的目标发动了许多攻击，而其他黑客只发了几次攻击，才最终沦为犯罪。更好地理解为什么某些黑客发起大量攻击而其他黑客却不发起攻击，将有助于实施有针对性的干预策略。因此，当前的研究以119位活跃的黑客为样本，试图回答两个研究问题：（1）基于攻击量，是否存在不同类别的网站欺诈者？（2）哪些观察到的黑客级别特征可用于预测潜在的类成员身份？我们发现存在两个独特的网站欺诈者组：低流量欺诈者（69％）和高流量欺诈者（31％）。社交媒体的存在，污秽的内容和污秽的类型都预示着潜在的阶级成员身份。讨论了政策含义。