Cyberattack Sense-making Methods: Comparing the Capital One (2019) and Internet Archive (2024) Data Breach Reddit Discussions

This paper covers the Capital One (2019) and Internet Archive (2024) cyberattacks, both severe breaches of user data that caused notable reactions online. The user perspective remains overlooked by large internet services. In this paper, user concerns are leveraged to gain insights into the sense-making processes relevant to each case. This is achieved through text analysis of the Reddit discussions for each event, emphasizing their topics, named entities, and overarching trends. It was found that Capital One (2019) featured much more technical discussion than Internet Archive (2024), and users perceived Internet Archive much more favorably than Capital One as a service. While both events have distinct qualities that set them apart, this study demonstrates the value of trust, transparency, and rapid disclosure for internet services. This paper's methods can be applied across institutional contexts to provide a service with a better grasp of the needs of its user base.