Politically Motivated Hacking: Consequences, Security Techniques, and Criminological Theories

This article discusses the consequences of politically motivated hacking, the effectiveness of current security techniques, and the relation of criminological theories to cyber crime. It also highlights issues in relevant policy and the need for further developments.

Running Head: Cyber Crime 0
Politically
Motivated
Hacking
Student’s Name
5/28/2018

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Consequences of politically motivated hacking...........................................................................................3
Effectiveness of current Security techniques...............................................................................................4
Criminological theories................................................................................................................................5
Relation of Criminological Theories to Cyber Crime....................................................................................7
Issues in Relevant Policy..............................................................................................................................8
Conclusions..................................................................................................................................................9
Bibliography...............................................................................................................................................11
Criminal Justice (2017) Criminology Theories. Available at:
http://criminal-justice.iresearchnet.com/criminology/theories/ (accessed 30 May 2018)...........................14

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Introduction
In the current scenario, many of the people have started using technology with the intention to
harm others. Political motivated hacking is a kind of a dangerous online threat to politicians
these days (Infosec Institute, 2018). Although there are some techniques to stop this hacking but
those are not enough as this hacking is more powerful than the said techniques. The persons who
are used to do such hacks are known as hackers. Hacking is a crime and there is always a
malafide intention behind doing so (Australian Federal Police, 2018). In the recent years so many
cases has recorded in Australia, where hackers has stolen personal data of politicians and
defamed them. Political hacking needs not be related to personal data hacking; it can be of other
types too. Sometimes, hackers post false information by the name of politicians which make
confusion among general public. In conjunction to this, sometimes they also destroy data from
government sites and make politicians responsible for this. Effect of political motivated hacking
is far dangerous which can even be related to serious issues such as nuclear disasters and
uproarious attacks against society and government (Vamosi, 2011). In order to decrease the ratio
of political hacking, there is a requirement to improve to level of security level and defenses.

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Consequences of politically motivated hacking
Effects and impacts of political hacking are too threatening. Hacking is counted as cyber-crime.
Cyber-crime is a kind of misconduct which people do with the help of internet. When internet
has become developed globally, at the starting phase people were used to operate the same for
their betterment. But now with passage of time some people are start using the same for others,
to defame the other and to harm the others (Acorn, 2018). There are countless adverse
consequences of politically motivated hacking. As the name implies itself, this kind of hacking is
related to politicians rather than the general public. Whenever a terrorist attack happens to any of
the nation, there is always a flow of information to wrong people. These people use the crucial
data of a nation for a deceptive purpose and do the acts like attacks and riot (Kornwitz, 2017).
Politicians are the important person to a nation. A nation works by the mind of politicians. But
when an activity such as political hacking comes into light, it defame to the said important
person. By stealing politician’s personal data, such hackers plan activities which have their
adverse impact on nation as well as on politician. Politically motivated hacking has economic
and social losses (Rouse, 2018). This is to mention that politicians have very crucial data with
them related to their nation and also has their personal plans and policies. Due to such hacking
these policies goes out and become useless. Data available with government departments is
expected to be secure. A nation has the most crucial data with their government servers. But in
case of such planned political hacking, this data no longer remain of use (Lohrmann, 2016).
Here, this is also important to know that there is always a purpose behind politically motivate
hacking. Sometimes such kind of hacking is intra nation. Which mean one political party can use

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the hacking techniques in against to other party. Whether, these hacking techniques are uses
against one party or to one nation, this always brings injurious results.
Potential consequences of political motivated hacking can be disturbance among public,
economic loss and defamation of politicians. In addition to this, such hacking also put massive
disruption on mind of politicians. Nothing can be more dangerous for a nation if it is basic data is
not secured from hackers (RNZ, 2017). Behind every political motivated hacking, there is always
a criminal mind.
Effectiveness of current Security techniques
One thing is very clear that the presented techniques are not secured enough to protect the
relevant data. To Secure a Nation’s crucial data, there must be some better techniques. Although
such data is not available on any local network, yet the same need to be secure more carefully.
Even being on servers and clouds, these data re not secured, the main reason of this is that the
security gateways are not so strong (Greene, 2018). When a data path has very common location
or easily traceable then such data remains not at all secure. For protecting a data from computer
viruses, there so many good anti viruses are available but the main issue is with hacking, and it
becomes more crucial when it comes to politically motivated hacking. Here requirement of a
Content Management Systems are need to know. What level of security, a person wants in order
to secure his/her data is very important aspects. Political data has huge significance and need to
be secure very carefully. If the secure system and separate server would not be create for such
kind of data then this data cannot be remain secure (Latimer, 2017).
In the present era it has come into knowledge that many of the times political parties retain their
data on a different server but such server does not have limited access or it may state that the

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same is share with many of the people in a department. One needs to sure that crucial data like
political one must have limited allowed access (IKARUS, 2018). In addition to server security,
data base security also plays significant role in security of a data. At current scenario, most of the
times data which have their political value are remain available on a week database. These
databases are not restrictive in nature. Further, at present it is a general practice follow by
government to outsource their IT services to any of the private players. No doubt such players do
well in market, but they do not provide the guarantee of data security. In order to secure the data
from politically motivated hacking, governments and politicians are needed to be more aware.
With the current approach, data cannot be treated as secured from such hacking and present
system and defenses against politically motivated hacking needs more updation or it may state
that security techniques of data hacking prevention need to be more effective (Brujin and
Janseen, 2017) .
Criminological theories
Criminological theories are the reason which motivates people for doing crime. These terms
defines that why people actually commit crime (Criminal Justice, 2017). There are numbers of
theories which have been identified by law over the years. As earlier discussed that hacking is a
kind of cyber-crime, there can be many reasons to commit the same. Generally, behind a
criminal mind there is more than one reason. It is important to know that why few of the people
are engaged in crime, whereas other are not. What is the reason of such difference? Why some of
the people work only to hurt others? Criminological theories answer all these questions. These
theories basically are the motivation for criminals (Tania, 2014). These theories have many
kinds, out of which some important ones are discussed in this essay hereafter. Criminological

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theories include Rational Choice Theory, Social Learning Theory, Labeling Theory, Frustration
Strain Theory and further more (Briggs, 2018).
Rational Choice Theory is a situation where a person works for self-interest or for the benefit of
some reward in exchange of commitment of a crime. This is a situation where criminal knows
the potential result of a crime conduct and he/she compares the same with the benefit he/she is
going to get by doing so. When such criminal turns to be sure that they are adhere to get more in
return, they precede the crime they have asked for. Whereas in Social learning theory, people get
motivate to commit crime and they get the required skills to do so from the people they are in
association with. Here it means people observes their surroundings and people in their
neighborhood and get motivate to do crime while watching them doing so (Ogilvie and Stewart,
2010).
Further, Labeling Theory is the one where a person makes declare another one as criminal and
other people starts using that criminal mind for their purpose and such people starts to approach
them to commit more crime (ReviseSociology, 2016). Frustration and strain theory is one of the
most important one in criminological theories. This theory is one the great motivation behind
criminal mind (Griffith University, 2018).
In society many of the times it happens that two or more persons have equal eligibility and
qualification; still they do not get equal opportunities. It creates frustration. It its very obvious to
have a criminal mind when someone has qualification still he/she cannot be able to achieve the
level of society’s expectations from them. It enhances stress level and converts their mind to
criminal one. Such people choose way of crime to prove their identity and eligibility (Agnew R,
2012).

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Relation of Criminological Theories to Cyber Crime
As cyber-crime is just another type of crime, it also has the same applications and approaches.
One can easily relate the aforesaid criminological theories to Cyber Crime. Cyber-crime does not
only mean hacking, it also includes other dangers like bullying and defamation. Irrelevant to the
nature of crime, in the background of every crime there is a presence of criminal mind. Criminal
Intention of a person cannot be elaborate. The same is a combination of different theories (Holt,
2012).
In Cyber-crime also, if a person conduct such act, he/she must be victim of more than one theory.
In this sector, people are expert of their field, whereas availability of jobs and opportunities are
not up to the mark. There are always some people in the society who have their wrongful
intention in against of the other person. Such people approach to IT experts and offer them good
amount to perform their skills for a wrongful intention and deed. This amount motivates these
experts to conduct the crime. This situation brings applicability of Rational Choice Theory
(Natarajan 2017).
In continuation, when a person comes to know about the advance skills of discussed expert,
he/she refer the same to another person, who have equal and same intentions. By this way,
Labeling Theory comes becomes applicable in real world. Further, such cyber criminals also
motivate to other one and those other people become criminal by developing Social learning
theory.
Still in the cases of Cyber-crime, most of the times Strain theory has the main application. As
earlier discussed that strain theory is a situation when a person does not get proper response
regarding his/her qualification, the same become a criminal mind. It has observed from various

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cases, that the persons who have good knowledge of information technology are very under rated
in society. Since, available jobs in this sector are very few in number in comparison to
requirement, experts do not get proper placement. It creates dissatisfaction and irritation. Society
has it is own expectations from it is people but failure to meet out those expectations give birth to
cyber criminals (Broadhurst, 2017).
Cyber criminals are the frustrating mind who is not able to get the proper platform to show their
skills. This is the reason for which they use their skills in a wrongful manner with an intention to
hurt others.
Issues in Relevant Policy
To prevent the issues of cyber-crime and political motivated hacking, there are some policies
made by the federal government in Australia. These policies have some aspects such as
spreading awareness in public, rigidness of cybercrime legislations and enforcement of the same.
For Australia, politically motivated hacking is a new threat which needs to be resolve in very less
time. It has come to news before some time some suspicious Russian hackers has stolen around
19000 private e-mails of politicians and related persons. In addition to news has also come that
china has made cyber-attack to federal government’s sensitive data holder system (Uhlmann,
2015).
To control such hackings and bullying cases, government in Australia has made the aforesaid
policies. By raising awareness in public about cyber-crime and politically motivated hacking,
this issue has controlled up to a level. Now, people are more aware and possessive about their
personal data. Here people refer to politicians and government departments. Further, as federal

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government has also strengthened it is litigations related to cyber-crime in order to protect this
country from cyber-attacks, it is also a good step taken by this government. Now, the same has
also it is focus on enforcement of mentioned litigations.
In addition to this Australia was one of the parties to the Council of Europe Convention on
Cybercrime (the Budapest Convention) since 2013. Afterwards this country has developed some
associations and program like Cyber Safety Pasifika and others in order to reduce the level of
cyber-crime (Australia’s International Cyber Engagement Strategy, 2018).
These policies have some issues such as implications and regular developments. As these cyber-
attacks are very crucial and dangerous in nature, there is a need to re-design the said policies.
These policies are not enough to response to such dangerous threats. So it may state that further
developments are required in this area (The Conversation, 2016). Cyber threats in Australia are
too dangerous. Further, politically motivated hacking has highly dangerous potential risk.
Conclusions
In order to provide the conclusion of the aforesaid discussion, it may state here that politically
motivated hacking is type of cyber-crime which is increasing very speedily all over global. Such
hacking has very dangerous impact and available defenses are not enough to fight with the same.
As the same has put adverse impact on an economy as well, this need to be handles with more
security. Politically motivated hacking is a kind of cyber-crime.
Behind every crime, some theories does work such theories are known as “Criminological
Theories.” The main reason of such hacking is criminological theories of such hackers which
motivate them to such conducts. There are some factors which Leeds a person to do conduct like

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hacking and other cyber-crimes. Majorly Strain theory works behind cyber-crimes. It is a
situation where a person become frustrated in the lack of proper opportunities and the same has
turned himself/herself into criminal. In addition to this there some criminological theories are
also there which motivates a person for cyber-crime.
In the recent years, Australia has faced so many issues and cases related to politically motivated
hacking. For which federal government has made and applied some policies and continuously
working on it. Still the relevant policies have some issues as the same are not up to the mark and
not enough to protect the crucial data from hackers and unauthorized access. So for this there are
some more updations and developments are advisable.

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