Adversarial knowledge-sharing in a coopetitive environment: a darknet hacker context

Obi Ogbanufe, Victor Benjamin and Dan J. Kim

European Journal of Information Systems, 2025, vol. 34, issue 1, 164-180

Abstract: As adversarial hacker exploits proliferate the media, researchers call for more studies examining their culture, behaviours, and defence mechanisms. This study aims to understand the nature of hackers through their knowledge-sharing behaviours in a coopetitive environment. This understanding may expose emerging threats and cybercriminal activities, which are beneficial to building information security defences. Also, extracting knowledge from darknet sources can help organisations anticipate, defend, and respond to cyber-attacks. Hence, we incorporate hacker forum data and perform a detailed analysis informed by foundational social capital theory. We explore hacker knowledge-sharing patterns with respect to the malicious knowledge shared. Further, we use nonlinear approaches to understand the dynamic relationships in an environment that is both cooperative and competitive. The findings seek to clarify how forms of social capital and coopetitive factors function differently to facilitate or impede knowledge sharing in a darknet context. Specifically, the findings indicate that the sharing of malicious knowledge is non-linear, and that knowledge control (i.e., reduced knowledge sharing) occurs with malicious knowledge as it relates to status and structural positioning.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/0960085X.2024.2305802

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