Question

a) Using practical examples, discuss the four categories of cybercrime as defined by the typology of crime in our modern society.

b) To what extent can you differentiate laws from professional codes of Ethics?

c) Ethics are standards of right and wrong, good and bad. What makes the difference in ethical behavior is when one either “talks the walk” or “walks the talk”. In illustrated concrete terms, what do the above expressions mean?

Answer 1

a)

What is Cyber Crime?

Cyber crime is broadly defined as any illegal activity that involves a computer, another digital device or a computer network. Cyber crime includes common cyber attack patterns like social engineering, software vulnerability exploits and network attacks. But it also includes criminal acts like hacktivist protests, harassment and extortion, money laundering, and more.

Cyber crime targets both individuals and companies. Typically, attackers target businesses for direct financial gain or to sabotage or disrupt operations. They target individuals as part of large-scale scams, or to compromise their devices and use them as a platform for nefarious activity.

Types of Cyber Crime

The US Department of Justice identifies three types of cyber crime in situations where:

1. A computer is the target of the attack—for example, a data breach on a corporate network
2. A computer is the weapon for an attack—for example, a denial of service (DoS) attack
3. A computer is an accessory to a criminal act—for example, digital identity theft which leads to theft of funds from a bank account

Cyber Crime Attack Vectors

The following vectors are the primary methods cyber criminals use to conduct criminal activity:

• Botnets—a botnet is a network of computers that attackers infected with malware, compromised and connected them to a central command & control center. The attackers enlist more and more devices into their botnet, and use them to send spam emails, conduct DDoS attacks, click fraud, and cryptomining. Users are often unaware their computer is being used as a platform for cyber crime.
• Ransomware and other malware—Ransomware is malware that encrypts data on a local machine and demands a ransom to unlock it. There are hundreds of millions of other types of malware that can cause damage to end-user devices and result in data exfiltration.
• Phishing and other social engineering attacks—phishing involves sending misleading messages via email or other channels, that cause internet users to provide personal information, access malicious websites or download malicious payloads.
• Fraud and identity theft—fraud is the theft of funds by an attacker pretending to be the owner of an account, or using stolen cards or credentials. Identity theft is a related concept, and involves compromising a user’s online accounts to enable an attacker to perform actions in their name.
• Flood attacks—most modern flood attacks are DDoS attacks, which leverage a botnet to hit a website or organization with massive amounts of fake traffic. Flood attacks can be targeted at the network layer, choking an organization’s bandwidth and server resources, or at the application layer, bringing down a database or email server for example.

• Browser hijacking—attacks like cross site scripting (XSS) can cause malicious code to run in a user’s browser. This can result in session hijacking, drive-by downloads and other illicit activity carried out in the user’s browser without their consent.

b)

Ethics is a topic which many people or groups of people tend to disregard. The decisions taken by business firm or individuals can be influenced by number of reasons. Many a times money or any monetary gains can influence a person to do unethical things either on work place or in everyday life. At each stage of life, every individual faces questions with negative or positive consequences. Is it right to cheat in a class test or bribe a police officer or cheat in a tax return? The questions are endless. Capital punishment like hanging a person may be right, but is it ethical?

Ethics guide the decision making process and actions of individuals on a broader prospective. The society is subjected to the implications of rules, legal restrictions, customs that determine what is right and wrong in the eyes of the society. Thus these rules upheld the rigid ideas of morals and ethics. For example thousands of years ago, the ‘10 commandments’ were created in order to teach the common man the difference between right and wrong. But the question that arises out of the entire argument is who determines what is ethical or unethical?

The professional organizations have widely adopted the “basic†code for many companies, universities and professional institutions. While the professional codes of ethics have slight differences in emphasis, they are in agreement on general principles. Every profession faces some challenges where his personal values contradict his professional needs.

Ethics is something that has been defined in every possible manner but none of them are complete or conclusive. Ethics are nothing but the values which are cultivated in every individual to facilitate harmonious and smooth functioning of the society. Thus, it helps the people to decide what is right and what is wrong for their society.

Summarizing all that is discussed in the given paper, ethics be it any, personal or professional, are of importance. But achieving one at the cost of another is wrong for the individuals and society in general. This competitive and power hungry society needs people who uphold their principles. We need citizens who enjoy their rights while recognizing their duties. What is right should ultimately be the law. Legal entities should also be moral and ethical.

We need people, groups, companies and organizations to keep in mind the principles taught to man since early ages. Customs should not be forced but not discarded outright. A steady balance between the constantly conflicting personal morals and professional ethics is the need of the hour. A nation developing at the cost of its citizens’ character and morals is developing but not progressing.
The laws relating to Intellectual Property or any field for that matter, framed by a country should acknowledge the owner’s innovation but at the same time leave ample scope for moderation and development.

c)

Walk the Talk

Employees will be more inspired towards ethical behaviour if they see senior leaders championing it.

“It’s important for top management to be seen as ambassadors for strong values and ethics. This will ensure employees look up to them as role models and modify their own behaviour accordingly,â€

The core of “walking the talk†is to be the change you want to see in your company. In other words, tackle your own behavior first, before communicating these changes to your workforce. That way, you can establish some “street cred†before you ask your employees to take on the new changes too.

Changing habitual practices, routines or behaviors isn’t as easy as simply making a decision, of course. The decision must be supported by conscious attention and effort for some period of time.

People are built to run on habits by default. So many of our decisions that we think are governed by rational thought are actually habitual responses. To change one of those habits, we need to put a lot of effort into making a new set of choices.

Imagine the grooves on a record album. Making the needle follow any other path requires some significant external impact, like someone jumping on the floor nearby or jostling the record player. To wear a “new groove†into your existing album, you’ll need to follow a new path with deliberate, consistent effort until it becomes a habit, too.

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