Psychological And Cultural Behavioral Traits : Yahoo Cybersecurity Attack Actors

In the early days of computing, a hacker was primarily referred to as a computer guru, someone who is extremely technical with a high expertise in computer also known as “Expert Programmers”. Nevertheless, as technology is advancing at a face pace, hacking has adopted a completely different definition. The modern definition is someone who access a computer system primarily to steal or destroy information. Hacking has caused major harm in the realm of technology. Over the years, hackers have become much more lethal in their craft. They manage to break into complex information systems from entities such as banks, government agencies, and private businesses. Furthermore, they often manipulate their victims through social engineering in order to obtain financial benefits. Hackers hold different label such as: black hat hacker and white hat hacker in which all have their own motives.

Lantonero (2011, 16) underlines this point by pointing out that technology has shifted the advertising and selling process from the streets to the digital domain. Advertisers use genuine online services to advertise their victims. For example, they may disguise the act as an escort service. They often use pseudonyms and code words to avoid attracting the attention of authorities. For example, they may refer to their victim as an expensive teddy bear. Clients learn these code words from various online forums (Lantonero, 2011, p. 16 – 17). Perpetrators also commonly conduct their online activities on the hidden internet, where they make use of advanced encryption technologies to evade digital forensic tools that police use to track their activities (Zagorianou, 2015

Some of the most common cyber-crimes are cyberstalking, identity theft, spam and phishing among others. Cyber stalking has been classified as one of prevalent cybercrimes with many internet users falling victims of cyber bullying. Cyber stalkers meet their victims in different ways; mostly they normally have a relationship either in the real world or online world. Cyberstalking starts when this relationship ends. However, strangers who have collected information on the internet can also be cyber stalkers. The desire to control and even harm their victims is what motivates cyber stalkers. They may go to the measures of personifying their victims and post messages or controversial posts on the boards and chat rooms. In this real regard, cyberstalking is a real crime (Mansourabadi, 2014).

Chapter 13 Suler discusses the different kinds of deviant behavior in the digital world. Advances in technology have resulted in new forms of deviance as well as new forms of control. The internet is the place for deviance because of the lack of proper constraints and restraints on associations. The internet has the ability to form communities that creates and supports behaviors that are no longer a norm.

Internet has changed and transformed lives of society and constructed line between virtual and non-virtual communities. People remained to live in virtual world so it encouraged to encounter more deviance. Juveniles are most familiar with the internet deviance because they are more likely to attach with digital technology. Due to frequent use of internet juveniles develop hacking behaviour which involve spreading virus, altering file, infiltrating software. In one study, hacking done by juveniles provided the predictor of hacking behaviour. To get better perspective of this behaviour there are two criminological theories

The micro-theory that can be associated to explain the case study and why child exploitation occurs online is the social learning theory. The social learning theory is built off of differential association with the idea that criminal behavior is learned from others (Moore, 270). However, social learning theory determines that individuals not only engage in criminal behavior when around people associated with similar behavior, but that the behavior is also justified (Moore, 270). The Internet and technology has made social learning for pedophiles and child exploiters easier.

There are psychological theories that can lead someone to commit digital crimes are; moral development theories, personal disorder theories, and personality disorders (Fritch et al, 2015). Criminal conduct occurs when an opportunity to offend transpires and there is a delay in the development of moral reasoning in the individual. Therefore, the individual cannot control the temptation to engage in the activity and offends. Moral development theory is useful in understanding hackers. For instance, Kohlberg’s theory assumes that individuals develop their moral reasoning in a series of sequential stages while growing up (Lowman, 2010). That is, the reasons for believing what is right and wrong are different at

The agencies employed by governments to police the web in order to protect the vulnerable have seen an increase in child pornography and online fraud. The speed at which information can be distributed and the number of people that can be reached attracts those that are intent on causing harm. The term “cybercrime” is becoming more widely used. The financial gains that can be made and the anonymity the internet can provide, make the virtual world of cyberspace a haven for criminals. Although the internet has huge benefits for information gathering and social networking, in the wrong hands it can cause harm to the vulnerable and criminals are able to vanish into the underground with the use of false identities that are hard to track online.

The society of today has reached the verge of a technological revolution with nearly all individuals and most businesses becoming very dependent on computers and networks, due to the advances in telecommunications and computers, to perform daily activities. (Hafner, K. et.al., 1995). The haste to clasp this new technology has led to unveiling of a new line of criminals and criminal activities, commonly referred as hackers and hacking respectively. For us to understand the criminal behavior of cyber criminals, it’s critical to examine the traditional psychological theories of the criminal behavior and their application to generate a breakthrough to understand hacking.

Hacking In the Business Society From history we can observer that "human society" is easily influenced, and often mislead. There is a near endless amount of examples for this, ranging from the Suicidal Sect leaders (David Koresh http://www.rickross.com/reference/waco/waco321.html ), to mad dictators, with aspirations of taking over the world. This human susceptibility of being easily mislead, is clearly apparent when dealing with the issue of "Hacking", and "Hacking In the Business Society". The movie industry has played a great role in misinforming society of who a hacker is, and what they can do.

Thus, all what they want is to hack for fun (777, 777). In addition, companies might employ people who have an interest in hacking to try and hack their system. Thus, this helps companies to find weaknesses in their system, which then gives them the opportunity to improve it and minimize the change of getting hacked. According to (777, 777), hacking is mostly carried out by employees due to the fact that they have information about passwords and the users IDs which makes hacking easier for them.

To almost all computer professionals the actions of hackers are despicable and justify all sorts of nasty punishments. I fully agree that hacking is a criminal offense and should be prosecuted. The only thing that bothers me from a moral standpoint is that these criminals are essentially the cyberspace equivalent of teenage vandals. They do not know the implications of what they are doing. These people are displaying situational morality, and their actions are random, yet predictable.

Almost everyone everywhere in the world has either used or owned a computer. If there was an Internet connection, then they have all been connected together across that medium. But when you are just browsing the Internet or looking at your choice of social media site, did you know that you are getting attacked by some sort of malware or could be verbally assaulted by an individual? In Cyber Criminology: Exploring Internet Crimes and Criminal Behavior by K. Jaishankar, he describes all the ways people across the world are attacked everyday by some sort of malware or by an individual, such as a pedophile. Certain topics that will be discussed are subcultures in cyberspace, types of hackers/crackers, virtual sex offenders along with

Cybercrimes are one of the significant types of crimes that make various individuals vulnerable to victimization. Numerous types of cybercrimes exist throughout the world, including identity theft, spam, phishing, and online consumer fraud that relies on computer-based technology to facilitate criminal activities. The risk of cybercrime victimization influences individuals who differ in age, gender, ethnicity, and social class. This conveys that certain individuals are more likely to face cybercrime victimization than others. It’s also important to understand that certain countries are at higher risk of cybercrime victimization due to the level of access towards technology and the effectiveness of different approaches to target these crimes. In this paper, I will discuss demographics such as age, gender, and level of education to predict the risk of cybercrime victimization and emphasize on different approaches that reduces the likelihood of cybercrime victimization.

In order to fully understand security, people must be understood, specifically people’s relationship with information technology networks.