Date of Award

2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Ransomware has become a global cybersecurity issue in recent years. Ransomware is a type of malware that breaks into a security system and restricts access to infected users files to request money in exchange for decrypting keys. This issue has increased the concerns of cybersecurity specialists about the rapid spread of ransomware attacks across the world. This research studied the extent of ransomware attacks as a cybercrime in the United States. The goal of this study was to review the effect of ransomware attacks among individuals to rank states by the frequency of victimization and dollars loss in the United States. In this research, various references were reviewed to understand and examine ransomware attacks across the United States. Therefore, official government reports have been consulted in the data collection strategy. The research findings indicated that ransomware is a phenomenon or a kind of incident that has been increasing in scale, especially in recent years. Some policy implications and recommendations for future researchers are provided in this thesis. Future research should consider awareness education as an essential key tool to ransomware prevention.

Share

COinS