Understanding Cybersecurity Skill Levels Through Psychological Measures: Clustering Hackers with Traits Questionnaires

Abstract

In cybersecurity, performance in offensive tasks such as penetration testing or red-team exercises can be influenced by both technical skill and psychological traits. This exploratory study examines how specific psychometric characteristics relate to hacking performance in a controlled environment. Sixty-one participants who passed a cybersecurity skills test completed a two-day simulated hacking exercise and responded to psychometric questionnaires. A Random Forest analysis identified five questionnaire items—drawn from decision-making and personality measures—as the most predictive of cybersecurity skills test scores. The responses to these items were used in a k-means clustering analysis (k = 3), which revealed significant differences in skills test scores and response patterns across clusters. The findings suggest that certain psychological traits may serve as auxiliary indicators of cybersecurity skill. Further research could explore this relationship using aggregated trait-level metrics and broader participant samples, including professional red-teamers, to examine the robustness of these preliminary findings in more ecologically valid settings.