Challenges and Threats of Cybercrime for Australian Businesses Report

This report investigates the increasing rate of cybercrime and its impact on businesses, particularly in Australia. It defines cybercrime, outlines various challenges such as ransomware and data breaches, and highlights the specific threats faced by Australian companies. The study focuses on four major Australian firms: BHP Billiton, Wesfarmers, Woolworths Limited, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, aiming to assess the challenges and threats posed by cybercrime. The objectives include determining challenges, evaluating current security measures, and assessing the level of cybercrime in Australia. The literature review covers different types of cybercrimes, their effects on businesses (especially in sectors like banking and communication), and the importance of cybersecurity measures. It explores the methods hackers use (e.g., phishing, malware, and authentication schemes) and discusses the challenges in developing effective cybersecurity. The research employs a quantitative approach, using a descriptive research design with questionnaires distributed to ICT department heads in the selected companies. The research questions address the main threats, challenges, steps taken to minimize cybercrime, and the current cybercrime level in Australia.

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Business Research
The rate of cybercrime is increasing every day in the world. Many businesses, especially
those, operating under the modern technology are faced with many challenges due to cybercrime.
The advancement of the cybercrime is due to the modern technology is growing at a very high
rate. Cybercrime is basically defined as all the criminal activities which are carried on the
internet by use of electronic devices like computers (Arora et al. 2014). There are many
challenges which face different institutions due to cybercrimes. One of the challenges is that an
organization can be denied to access very important data unless a certain amount of money is
paid and this is basically called ransom ware. The denial of data accessing by organizations may
lead to a standstill of all the activities in the institution. Another challenge is the fake
advertisements and false responses which can make companies carry out tasks in the wrong way.
In Australia, cybercrime has also been witnessed in different occasions and many
scholars argue that it is still growing. Many companies in Australia experience a security threat
at least one or two times a month with other going up to even seven times a month hence
creating a great concern about security (Bhatti & Sami 2015). Due to this security concerns, this
study is aimed at accessing the challenges which business undergo due to cybercrime in

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Australia and the threats which this cybercrime pose for those businesses. This will create
insights on how to solve those problems.
Objectives
The main objective of this study is to access the threats which are posed by cybercrimes
businesses in Australia. The following are the other objectives of the study
1. To determine the challenges which business face due to cybercrimes in Australia
2. To evaluate the steps which businesses have taken to curb cybercrimes in Australia
3. To access the level of cybercrimes in Australia.
Project scope
This study will be carried on in the four biggest firms in Australia that is BHP Billiton,
Wesfarmers, Woolworths limited and the Common wealth bank of Australia. The four
companies have been chosen because they are the largest firms in Australia and hence they
experience the highest rate of cybercrimes. In addition, they since they are developed firms and
operate in large volumes of data, it is possible to get enough data for this study from therm.

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LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
Cybercrime is defined as any crime involving computers and basically operated through
the internet (Bhatt and Pant 2011). There are many types of cybercrimes. The following are some
examples: computer system attacks where by computers maybe hacked or infected with virus or
malware. This type of cybercrime is ones among the many cybercrimes which affect businesses
in Australia. Another type of cybercrime is identity theft which includes the use of one’s
personal information without his or her consent.
The effects of cybercrime for businesses in Australia
The businesses which are mostly affected by cybercrimes in Australia include banking,
communication provides and energy companies (Das and Nayak 2013). Many companies in
Australia operated by the use of the internet and hence most the data is stored online for easy
accessing and for faster communication (Levin and Ilikina 2013). Due to this operation based on
the internet, most of the companies face frequent cybercrimes like hacking. Hackers basically
rely on these companies since they can get huge returns if they succeed in the mission of
hacking. This makes the companies un-secure and hence there is a need to come up with some
strategies on how to solve this problem.
In Australia, cybercrime affects both the private and public sector and hence both are
subjected to the same challenges. However, the public sector is the most affected and suffers a
lot due to these crimes (Ganji et al. 2013). Many people have suffered due to cybercrime by
losing jobs or even losing their savings in a case whereby the systems are hacked and the savings
stolen.

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In the last two years, two prominent companies in Australia that are Yahoo and Snap
Chat were victims and this lead to lose of reputations and trust in the companies. When a
company is subjected to a cybercrime, many of its customer’s loose trust and it takes very long
time to build the reputation again, yet it takes only seconds to destroy it. To many companies, the
cybercrime is inevitable because they are internet friendly and hence they carry many of their
operations online. Due to fake advertisements, many customers make it very hard to believe and
put trust to those companies which operate online and hence it makes it very hard for the
companies to build customer trust.
There are at least three ways which hackers use to carry out cybercrime missions. The
first one is by use of emails whereby the hacker designs and sends a fraud email address to the
targeted person and once the person opens the email, the sender gets access to the information of
that person or company and hence carries out his or her mission. These emails mainly target
those people responsible for finance in the companies since the main target is to steal (Ksherti
2013). Another way which is used by hackers is accessing the app store by use of malware to
access bank details and steal from people. The last method majorly used by hackers is the
authentication scheme whereby they target those people who use the same password to access
different accounts by use of machine learning tools to access the background history of those
accounts and passwords.
The combination of these methods poses a great challenge to many companies in
Australia since it is very hard to control them. Many of the companies educate their employees
on how to avoid them but at the end, they still find themselves victims of the same. Also, some
employees make deals with hackers and give them vital data of the companies to carry out the
hacking process and then share.

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Cybersecurity
This is a combination of technologies which are used to prevent computers, data, and
networks from cyber-attacks (Robinson et al. 2013). These technologies are basically designed
by experts to help minimize the effects of cybercrime. Although these technologies are still
rising, cybercrime is also rising every day and hence challenging the development of the
cybersecurity. There are many challenges which these cyber securitytechnologies face in the
process of development like lack of enough funds and also lack of trust since some of the
developers turn out to be the hackers. This makes it very hard to curb the vice of cybercrime
fully.
One of the main challenges that cyber security faces are the human beings themselves.
Human beings have a tendency to value their own innovations and beliefs and believe that when
they come up with a new technology irrespective of whether it is good or bad, it should be
implemented and this makes it very hard to control them to have good ethics. Another challenge
which faces cyber security development is the education system which offers the same skills on
how to hack systems and the students then advised not to practice it. Due to curiosity, many
students practice it and they end on a mission of cybercrime.
Also, many people are not careful on what things to avoid on the internet. In a research
published recently, it shows that more than half of the people who use the internet basically click
on any link which is sent to them even if they don’t know who send them and hence end up
being victims of cybercrime (Wang and Lu 2013). In the research, they recommend that people
should be told the things which should be avoided on the internet so as to minimize cybercrimes.

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This can only be achieved if many researchers are carried out to determine the main causes of
these cybercrimes.
Research questions
The following is the primary research question of this research
What are the main threats of cybercrimes for businesses in Australia?
The following are the secondary research questions of this study
1. Which are the challenges which business in Australia faces due to cybercrimes?
2. Which steps have businesses in Australia taken to minimize or eliminate cybercrimes?
3. What is the level of cybercrimes in Australia?

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Research design and methodology
Research methodology is a scientific and logical organization of a well-structured process
which is used to collect and analyze data so as to make decisions from the data (Mackey and
Gass 2015). The research design is a well-structured frame which includes all the participants
of the study and where it will be carried out (Creswell 2013). This research will be carried out in
four companies of Australia.
Type of the study
The researcher will carry out a quantitative research. Quantitative research is an empirical
and systematic way of doing an investigation through an application of both scientific and
mathematical approaches and by use of numerical data to come up with knowledge of a certain
phenomenon (Mertens 2014). There are twelve steps which are used to carry out quantitative
research. These steps should be followed logically and in a systematic manner so as make the
research findings reliable. The following is the outline of the twelve steps.
The first step in quantitative research is the formulation of the research problem. In this
step, the researcher comes up with the problem of interest on which the research will be carried
on and make recommendations on how to solve the problem. The second step of the research is a
definition of the purpose of the study. In this step, the researcher explains well why he or she
intends to carry out the study. There follows the step of literature review whereby the researcher
reviews articles which have been already written and are directly related to the problem under
study. The next step is the formulation of the hypothesis where by the researcher comes up with

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the hypothesis which will be answered by the research. The next step is the design of the study,
in this step the researcher comes up with a road map of how the research will be carried out.
The next step is the sample selection whereby the researcher uses either
probability or non-probability methods to select the sample which will be included in the study.
It follows the step of data collection whereby the researcher goes to the selected sample to
collected data for the study. Then it follows the process of data cleaning whereby the data is
checked to access its variability and reliability. In this step qualified statisticians are included in
the study so as to help with their statistical skills. Then it follows the process of data analysis
which is carried out to transform the collected data into information. After analysis, the findings
are summarized and then appropriate findings are given out. After that recommendations are
made and the areas of further research suggested.
The research design
This is the conceptual structure within which he study is carried out. This study will use
descriptive research design where by data will be collected by use of questioners which will be
hand-delivered to the target sample and will contain questions which are relevant to the study.
Target population and sample frame
This study will be carried on in the four biggest firms in Australia that is BHP Billiton,
Wesfarmers, Woolworths limited and Commonwealth bank of Australia. The target population
will be the heads of ICT departments in those companies and who handles different types of
work based on the internet. The ICT departments have been chosen because they are the ones
who knowledge of what is meant by cybercrimes hence they can give out reliable data which can
be used to make the study more reliable. Also, they know the challenges they undergo in the

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process of determining which are the best methods to handle and eliminate cybercrimes hence
making them the most relevant people in this study.
Samples and sampling procedure
The study will include a sample size of 400 ICT officers from the four companies. Each
company will give out one hundred participants. The researcher will use random sampling to
select he participants where by each person will be given a random number and then the
selection will be done by use of those random numbers. This method of sampling has been
chosen because it gives each person an equal chance to participate in the study hence there is no
bias and that makes the study more reliable. Also, random sampling is based on probability and
that makes it one of the best methods to use for selection of a sample in a quantitative study
(Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 2014).
Instrumentation
Questionnaires will be the main tool for data collection. A questionnaire is a printed or a
printed paper which contains questions with answers which are used to carry out a survey or for
a statistical study. A questionnaire is the best method to use for collecting data of a quantitative
study since it saves time during data collecting because you can handover many of them to
different participants and they answer simultaneously. This creates time for the process of data
analysis which needs more time than the process of data collection. Due to these advantages, the
researcher has decided to use a questionnaire as the main tool for data collection.
Data collection procedure

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The researcher will seek permission from the companies’ management to select the
sample and handover the designed questioners to the selected participants. All the participants
will be ensured of security and nobody will be forced to participate. Also, participants will be
allowed to withdraw any time from the study in a case where by one may feel is being harassed.
This will give them a favorable place environment to participate in the study.
Research limitations
Despite the efforts of the researcher to organize and formulate a good and reliable
research, there may be some challenges which will contribute to some limitations in the study.
one of the limitations is that some participants may not be willing to give out data hence
important information may be left out. Also, time allocated for the study may not be much
appropriate to carry out a comprehensive study. However, the researcher will work hard to
minimize those limitations and make the research more reliable and more scientific. Good
methods will be adapted to address the challenges.
Time schedule of the study
This study will be carried out for a period of two months. This time will give the
researcher at least humble time to finish all the requirements of the study. The first week will
involve the designing of the questioners for data collections and the understanding of the
theoretical parts of the study. The second week will involve the process of identifying and
knowing the places where the data will be collected. The researcher will visit each company to
formalize with it. The third week of the study will be for sample selection and data collection and
hence the questioners will be handed over to the selected sample. After data collection, the
researcher will take a one week-break but in the process of the break, he will go through the

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questioners to see if they are well filled and that will mark the end of the first month. The second
month will involve the process of data analysis. In the first week the research will clean the data
then in the second week, the process of data analysis will be carried out. In the third week the
researcher will communicate the findings and then in the fourth week, the researcher will make
the required recommendations.
Time schedule
The first month
wee
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one
1. designing questioners
understanding theoretical parts
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two
visit the companies involved in the study and
familiarize
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thre
e
1. sample selection
data collection
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four
verifying the questioners used for data
collection
The second month
wee
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one
data cleaning
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two
data analysis
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thre
e
findings
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recommendations

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Conclusion
This research has been designed and will be carried out to try in solving some of the
challenges companies in Australia undergo due to cybercrime. The research will make it possible
to identify also gaps for further research and hence help in minimizing cybersecuritythreats. The
study has been well designed in a logical order and by using both mathematical, statistical and
scientific methods so as to make it more reliable. When it will be carried out the
recommendations given will be of great help to all companies in Australia not only the ones
selected.