Millennial Psychology Towards Hacking Activities

Hacking competition has becoming popular among teenagers, especially university students nowadays. In Malaysia, there are many companies and universities that organize hacking competitions such as F-Secure, KPMG, CyberSecurity Malaysia, Asia Pacific University, UiTM, UniKl, and many others. Besides that, there are also many platforms available for those who are interested in penetration testing or hacking activities such as Hack the Box (HTB), picoCTF, TryHackMe, and many others.

The facilities available, together with individual interest, have attracted many people — not only teenagers but also school students and adults — to participate in hacking competitions. Most people participate in hacking competitions due to many reasons such as gaining money, sharpening their skills, and sometimes wanting to try new things or skills.

This paper is focusing on the current trend of attacks, analyzing the target group of people in terms of their behavior, psychology, and interest toward hacking activities. Questionnaires were prepared focusing on demography, psychology based on extrinsic and intrinsic factors, and hacking experience questions. Based on the analysis, the result would be on the influence and psychological impact of the millennial generation toward hacking activities.