Do Hacker Groups Pose a Risk to Organizations? Study on Financial Institutions Targeted by Hacktivists

As organizations are increasingly engaged in the digital world with greater dependency on data, crime and activism have shifted from the streets to the internet. In this paper, we study the impact of activist hacking campaigns on financial institutions. We look into how target institutions’ deep web and dark web exposure in terms of different risk categories is affected by hacking campaigns, and the interactions of the risk categories during the campaigns. On average, hacking campaigns raise the target institutions’ deep web and dark web exposure by 62 percent per year during the first two years after the campaigns’ start date. Small financial institutions are more vulnerable to the campaigns than large institutions. Further, leaked employee passwords amplify the campaign effect substantially, which allows us to forecast the institutions’ cyber exposure changes during and after the campaigns.