Applying Ethical Theory to Cybercrime: A Case Study and Analysis

This essay explores the ethical dimensions of cybercrime by examining a case study of a Queensland law firm targeted by social engineering. It analyzes the ethical implications of the crime through the lens of classical theories like utilitarianism and deontology, highlighting the complexities of determining right and wrong in the digital age. The essay concludes with recommendations for addressing the ethical challenges posed by cybercrime, emphasizing the need for greater awareness, improved cybersecurity practices, and international cooperation.

Applying Ethical Theory
Assignment 3: Cybercrime
1

Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Main body:.......................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................7
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................8
2

Introduction:
The essay is based on the ethical issues that are related to the cybercrime. Different classical
theories are applied to analyse the ethical situation for finding out the rightness or wrongness of
the decision made. At the end of the essay, suggestions are provided to resolve the ethical issues
in cyber-crime.
3

Main body:
Cybercrime is a crime that incorporates of computer and a network. Cybercrimes can also be
defined as the crimes that are committed against persons or a group of persons with an intention
to impairment the reputation of the victim; it can even cause serious mental harm to the victim.
Cybercrime can also harm the individual person as well as the financial health and security of a
nation. The issues that are covered by cybercrime are getting high profile day by day. The
cybercrime that is crossing the international border and caused against another country is called
as cyber warfare.
As per the studies and reports, the cost of cybercrimes can damage $445 billion to the global
economy. Cybercrime is or fraud is done when wrong information is represented in front of the
victim and he gets in the trap following that information, this fraud can benefit the criminals by
varying in an illegal way, destroying or stealing output and deleting stored data. Cybercrimes are
committed by a specific cluster of criminals, computers are the key weapons in these attacks and
the attacker needs a decent knowledge of technology and using this internet tools, the society is
not prepared for this dealing with such kind of crimes (Allodi, Corradin, & Massacci, 2016).
A case study about the cybercrime at Queensland law firm who were targeted with the social
engineering is gone through, where cybercriminals stole millions of dollars from the Queensland
law firm. As per the case study the cybercriminals didn’t hack or infected any virus in the
network of lawyers but the cybercriminals just sent an email to the lawyers and gained the
access. The lawyers were battered by phone calls which were presented in the form of clients
seeking legal help then the cybercriminals sent a mail saying it included the confidential
documents, this mail required re-login for access which contained links for the file-sharing site,
this whole process was a hoax to get the email and passwords of the lawyers this was the phase
one and in phase two of the scam they monitored the firm’s email traffic which was for invoicing
request payments. The cybercriminals saw a huge suitable invoice from the firm’s inbox and
then they further sent a counterfeit text to them with fake bank account details due to which they
gained access to the money and not the law firm. Lawyers are referred as smartest people who do
not fall prey to false crimes but the cybercriminals gained the faith of these lawyers by just
4

talking on phone calls. The fraud of the firm was a result of social engineering which was a
crime that pivots the psychological manipulation (Buczak & Guven, 2016).
Many people think that the cybercrime is an issue of the IT department but in reality, most of the
cyber-attacks are embattled on the people who are seen as a feeblest link of the security chain. In
the regular email scams, this method is used most of the times, in cybercrime, they are about
victim’s psychology and technology. There are various manipulation techniques that are utilized
by cybercriminals to trick people by posing as a well-known company or a government agency.
The main aim of the social engineering attacks is same most of the times; the pattern includes
gaining faith of the victim and removing their password or other personal information (Donner,
Marcum, Jennings, Higgins, & Banfield, 2014).
The classical theory applied to analyse the morally questionable situation is of utilitarianism
which is a typical hypothesis that places the locus of decent and wicked on the consequences of
picking the strategies over diverse arrangements from a utilitarianism viewpoint that collects the
information for providing great services to the individuals which is morally allowable because
the information which is composed is not stowed but it is utilized for the services that are
assured to the people that compose the information of others without their permission or consent
is called as fissure of security. The classical scholarship in cybercrime has been finding four
chief objectives for the penalty retribution, deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation, all of
these goals are suitable for two of the typical framework utilitarianism and deontological. The
deontological structure says that a response is there in the society to make sure to punish a
criminal person (Holt & Bossler, 2014).
Under the deontological structure, punishment is defensible by the positive social significance;
the most basic punishment under this structure is retribution. In the utilitarianism, the framework
is anxious about the social goals in future so that the future behaviour can be improved. The two
theories and their four goals do not function in a vacuum; the justice of the criminals is
dependent on the mixture of the principals and the continuous variations. There are utilitarian
profits for the graded proportionality. The purpose of the punishment of deontological is
retribution whereas utilitarian has the purpose of deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation.
The utilitarianism theory is a normative typical theory which emphases on the right and wrong
5

exclusively on the penalties for finding the actions. This theory finds out the role of pain in
human life, it favours and even condemns the act on the basis of the volume of pain and
pleasure. It associates the good and the evil with the pain. In terms of cybercrimes, the
cybercriminals gain pleasure from making another victim of their fake policies or infecting their
networks with malware. The crimes of these criminals are seen as pleasure in this theory and the
gains they get from this activities is called as a utility. An action that exploits utility is one that
uplifts the total profits by diminishing the results for a larger number of people (Konradt,
Schilling, & Werners, 2016).
The numbers of cases for the cybercrimes are increasing rapidly, the juries of this cyber cases
have been failing to prove or even disapprove the concepts which have been considered as the
liability by paradigms. The existing jury system needs to be amplified by increasing their vision
towards this cybercrimes. The cyber ethics are the study of the moral and legal issues
incorporating the cybersecurity. This influences the impact of cyber technology on the society.
For enhancing the cybersecurity the sources personal data needs to be proactively open about
their policies which show higher respect for their users with the help of feedbacks. In the
cybercrimes, none needs higher deposits of administration, so standard bodies need to take the
higher role in coordinating and ensure the common approach (Pathak & Nanded).
The rogue states need to be obtained out about the besieged politically and persuaded for signing
on the International standards of the cybercrimes, the participation of such chief legal parts
should be dependent on the receipt of such guidelines. For better cybersecurity and solve the
ethical issues the banks and law enforcers should co-ordinate properly in the terms of reporting
of the crimes by the person needs which are affected desires to be protected. Many of the
individuals do not report the crimes thinking they might not be helped which leads to increase in
the rates of cybercrimes. The international level cybercrimes or called as cyber warfare is also to
be taken care of so that the national level peace is maintained, there should be proper monitoring
of the laws that are violated by the cybercriminals (Rid & Buchanan, 2015).
6

Conclusion:
As per the essay on the cybercrimes the ethical issues related to these crimes are given, a case
study is explained about the Queensland law firm’s cyber-attack. The theories like utilitarianism
and deontology are explained in the context of cybercrimes. At last the logical and justifiable
conclusions to solve the ethical issues are provided in the essay.
7

Bibliography
Allodi, L., Corradin, M., & Massacci, F. (2016). Then anon the maturity of the cybercrime
markets the lesson that black-hat marketeers learned. IEEE Transactions on Emerging
Topics in Computing, 4(35-46).
Buczak, A. L., & Guven, E. (2016). A survey of data mining and machine learning methods for
cyber security intrusion detection. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 18(1153-
1176).
Donner, C. M., Marcum, C. D., Jennings, W. G., Higgins, G. E., & Banfield, J. (2014). Low self-
control and cybercrime: Exploring the utility of the general theory of crime beyond
digital piracy. . Computers in Human Behavior, 34(165-172).
Holt, T. J., & Bossler, A. M. (2014). An assessment of the current state of cybercrime
scholarship. . Deviant Behavior, 35 (1)(20-40).
Konradt, C., Schilling, A., & Werners, B. (2016). Phishing: An economic analysis of cybercrime
perpetrators. Computers & Security, 58(39-46).
Pathak, P. B., & Nanded, Y. M. (n.d.). A dangerous trend of cybercrime: ransomware growing
challenge. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering &
Technology (IJARCET), 5.
Rid, T., & Buchanan, B. (2015). Attributing cyber attacks. Journal of Strategic Studies, 38.
8