Summary Cyberpsychology

Cyberpsychology exam

Chapter 8 – Cybercrime and Deviance
+ Slides week 1
Deviance
Is being used to refer to a behaviour that may not be illegal, though outside of the formal and
informal norms or beliefs of a prevailing culture.
 Deviance and societal norms – texting and using mobile phones while watching a movie in
a cinema, this is technically not illegal but it is disruptive and discouraged

Cyberdeviance
Any deviance that is enabled by the internet and cyberspace, via mobile devices for example.
 An example of this involves the use and creation of pornographic content, or erotic, sexual
materials.

 Once an activity violates established legal statutes, it changes from being a deviant act to a
form of crime.

 Cybercrime refers to crimes ‘in which the perpetrator uses special knowledge of cyberspace’
while computer crimes occur because ‘the perpetrator uses special knowledge about
computer technology’.



Lower risk
Ease of Spam Technological
of
access proficiency
detection




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,Proxy services – can be used to hide a person’s actual location in physical space while online,
such as Tor.

Spam – Unsolicited emails, commonly used to send fraud schemes of all types.

How are victims harmed?
- Lack of universal policing
- Lack of awareness of cybercrime
- Lack of acknowledgement, too embarrassed to contact police
- Lack of trust in ability of help offered

Wall’s typology of cybercrime
- Cyber-trespass
Involves acts where individuals cross boundaries of ownership in online environments. This
is also called computer hacking. Malicious hackers are doing bad stuff; they disrupt network
traffic or capture passwords for example. They create viruses etc. too. There are different
types of malicious hackers:

 Cyber criminals
Are mainly motivated by big financial gain, they are using malware and exploits to
steal money.



 Spammers and adware spreaders
Illegal advertising, either getting paid by a legitimate company for pushing business
their way or by selling their own products. Cheap Viagra, anyone? “Aggressive
marketers.”

 Advanced persistent threat (APT) agents
Intruders engaging in APT-style attacks represent well-organized, well-funded
groups — often located in a “safe harbour” country — Purpose to steal a company’s
intellectual property. Essentially duplicate their victim’s best ideas and products in
their own homeland, or to sell the information to the highest bidder.

 Corporate spies
Significantly easier to do, thanks to today’s pervasive Internet connectivity.
Interested in intellectual property or competitive information. They differ from APT
agents in that they don’t have to be located in a safe-harbour country. Corporate
espionage groups aren’t usually as organized as APT groups, more focused on
short- to midterm financial gains.

 Hacktivists
Motivated by political, religious, environmental, or other personal beliefs. Content
with embarrassing their opponents or defacing their websites, although they can slip
into corporate-espionage mode if it means they can weaken the opponent.
 WikiLeaks.

 Cyber warriors
Cyber warfare is a city-state against city-state exploitation. Endgame objective of
disabling an opponent’s military capability. Participants may operate as APT or
corporate spies at times, but everything they learn is geared toward a specific
military objective.  The Stuxnet worm

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,  Rogue hackers
Prove their skills, brag to friends, thrilled to engage in unauthorized activities.
Crimeware isn’t their only objective and motivation. They’re a nuisance, but they
aren’t about to disrupt the Internet and business as we know it.

- Cyber-deception and theft
Can extend from hacking and other forms of cyber-trespass. Deception is readily enabled
by technology on the basis of the ease with which individuals can manipulate email and
other forms of communication.

 Phishing
Criminals send messages in which they claim that the recipient’s financial institution
has detected fraudulent charges on their account that needs to be validated. Etc.

 Spear-phishing
This is a tool used by attackers to penetrate a company’s network to facilitate a
targeted attack through malicious emails. It is also the most commonly used method,
95% of all successful targeted attack were made via spear phishing.

 Digital piracy
The illegal copying of digital media such as computer software, sound and video
recordings without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.  The Pirate Bay

- Cyber-porn and obscenity
This represents the range of sexually expressive content online. Rise of online subcultures
focused on deviant sexual activities: prostitutes, escorts and paedophiles.

- Cyber-violence
All forms of accessing and distributing injurious, hurtful or dangerous materials online. May
be designed to cause emotional, psychological or physical harm. Most common is online
bullying and harassment.

Theories:

 Routine Activity Theory
Developed by Marcus Felson and Lawrence
E. Cohen. In routine activities theory, crime
is likely to occur when three essential
elements of crime converge in space and
time: a motivated offender, an attractive
target, and the absence of capable
guardianship. The premise of routine activity
theory is that crime is relatively unaffected
by social causes such as poverty, inequality,
and unemployment.

For instance, after World War II, the
economy of Western countries was booming
and the Welfare states were expanding. Despite this, crime rose significantly during this
time. According to Felson and Cohen, the reason for the increase is that the prosperity of
contemporary society offers more opportunities for crime to occur; there is much more to
steal.


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