ITC506: Ethical Theories and Cybercrime Prevention Strategies

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ITC506 – Topics in Information
Technology Ethics
Assessment Item 3 – Argument Visualisation
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Media Article...................................................................................................................................4
'We lost nearly £10k to TV licence scammers'............................................................................4
Cybercrime and types of cybercrime...............................................................................................5
Ethical Theories and Their application in Ethical Issues:...............................................................8
Recommendation to Prevent Cyber-crime:...................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References:....................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction
Cyber-crime is an offence that is committed against an individual or a group to harm the
reputation of the victim over the internet. Cybercrime is also called as computer crime.
Cybercrime is an attack over the important information and sensitive data of an individual or
group. It is a crime which involves a computer and network for committing an offence. Through
cybercrime, people sabotage important information. There are numerous types of cyber-crime
such as money laundering, piracy, counterfeiting and so on. Ethics are the code of conducts
which describes the behaviour of an individual or group of people. Ethical theories and concepts
help in decreasing the rate of cybercrime.
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Media Article
'We lost nearly £10k to TV licence scammers'
A couple of Jerry and Carole tack received an email saying that TV license needed paying and
the couple without thinking twice paid the money. They entered their bank details and lost £
9900. A TV licensing spokesman told them that TV licensing would never email to their
customer saying enter your personal details. They reported this to the police, but the bank
refused to reimburse the money. Due to negligence, they lost their money. According to the
police statistics through cybercrime, people lose more than £190000 in a day. There has been an
increment of 24% in the ratio of victims since the previous six months. The city of London
police warned people to keep different passwords for online accounts. According to the reports
13,357 people reported cyber-crime in the past six months. More than 5000 people were hacked
through social media and email accounts. The UK is facing increasing numbers of cybercrime,
and the government is implementing internet security tools to reduce cybercrime. Every day due
to cyber-crime people has to face many challenges. Cyber-crime is not restricted to stealing
money; it includes stealing the private and confidential information of the people and
organisation. The government is implementing various laws to protect people from cyber-crime.
Everyday many people found their passwords hacked by the hackers, and they take sensitive
information. The United Kingdom is the most affected by cyber-crime, and the rate of cyber-
crime is increasing day by day. Cyber-crime comprises of financial theft and additional cross
border crimes.
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Cybercrime and types of cybercrime
Cybercrime is a crime or offence done over the internet. Cybercrime is done over the internet to
harm or mischief the people. There are several ways available to do cybercrime.
Types of cybercrime are as follows:
Piracy: Piracy is unauthorised or illegal use or reproduction of another’s work. For example,
vendors on the street are found selling pirated movies and songs. Many laws have been passed to
restrict piracy. It is done in many ways such as video piracy, data piracy, CD piracy and cable
piracy. Video piracy refers to the duplication of videos made originally made by someone else.
Data piracy refers to the duplication or copy of the data (Brown, 2015). Cable piracy means
forecasting films through the network with the unauthorised transmission. Piracy is illegal, and
every country has made laws to prevent piracy. Nowadays piracy is increasing rapidly people
often copy books, songs, and movies. In each country, strict laws should be made to stop piracy
so that people cannot duplicate the original movies, videos.
Money Laundering: money laundering is the procedure of producing or making a large amount
of money criminally. Criminals use a large variety of money laundering techniques to convert
illegal money into legal money. The money laundering is done over the internet. Money
laundering means illegal disbursement of money. The money laundering involves three steps
Placement, layering and integration. Placement puts the money into the financial system,
layering menus transferring the money into the bank account and integration means withdrawing
money from the account. There are various ways available to launder the money. Money
laundering is happening in every country. People often by the internet steal the information and
transfer the money into their accounts. There have been various strict laws to prevent money
laundering.
Hacking: Hacking means gaining unauthorised access to the system or resources. It is a
procedure of deification of the weakness in the system and gains illegal access in the system.
Hacking is very common, and it is done by hackers often. People who do hacking called hackers
(Herley, 2014). Through hacking, the hacker can steal the data or some personal information.
Hackers often hack the personal accounts of the people and post disgraceful information to harm
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the reputation of an individual or group. It is an attempt to steal information. There must be
proper security controls to protect the data and information. We live in a digital world and every
business organisation keep their information in the system. Hackers by hacking the systems of
business organisations steal the information and misuse that information.
Online Blackmailing: By getting unauthorised access into the system or data criminals steal
some personal nod confidential information which they use to treat the people .blackmailing is
illegal and numerous laws are prevailing to stop blackmailing. Blackmailing Means threatening
people to leak out secret information got by illegal access to the system. It is a crime of
threatening someone to reveal some disgraceful or embarrassing information or secret (McGuire
and Dowling, 2013). Online blackmailing can be defined as treating the people by stealing the
information over the internet. Online blackmailing is the most common cybercrime, and a lot of
people are the victims of online blackmailing.
Phishing: Phishing is a fraudulent activity. It involves sending of false email or texts using the
names of authorised companies and firms. It is a fraudulent attempt of getting some sensitive
information such as passwords, ATM pin, credit card details and so on. It is a method of getting
personal information to misuse collected information. It is done to steal important information
from the client. In this cyber-crime, criminals send the messages and email with the name of
authorised and famous company or firm so that people can easily trust them. In the email,
criminals ask for personal information such as account numbers, ATM pins, debit card and credit
card details. After getting the details, they misuse the information that is why now companies
send warning emails to protect the image and loyal customers.
Piggybacking: Piggybacking means gaining access to the restricted channel or communication
by following a person who has access. It also refers to someone allowing another person to use
their rights.it is also known as tailgating. Piggy bank is giving authority to another person to use
the rights of someone else. Piggybank is illegal and prohibited. It is an unethical practice of using
the rights of another person. People should not allow anyone else to use their rights as they may
misuse the right. Piggybacking is generally done by many people.
Denial of Service: it is a disruption in authorised user’s computer network. Users are thrown out
of the network without any prior warning allowing the interrupter/attacker to gain a small
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window to gain access to the sensitive data and hack into the system. It is an interruption in the
network of the user.
Data are diddling: Data diddling means making changes in the data entered into the computer.
It is mostly done by the data operator and the computer virus. It occurs when someone accesses
the information and alters that information. Data diddling is the most common type of
cybercrime and is illegal as well. It is the most common type of cyber-crime.
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Ethical Theories and Their application in Ethical Issues:
Ethical theories deal with moral principles and describe human character. Ethical theories
describe what is wrong and what is right. It helps in determining what should be done. These are
moral values which describe the behaviour of an individual or person.
There are four ethical theories are available which are as follows:
Utilitarianism: The ability to predict the consequences of an action is known as Utilitarianism
ethical theory (Herley, 2014)). There are two types Utilitarianism
Act Utilitarianism: This theory describes that a person should perform the action to provide the
benefit to the vast of the people regardless of personal emotion or feeling.
Rule Utilitarianism: It is concerned with the regulation, laws and fairness. This theory describes
that an individual should do the acts and performs the actions within the law.
This theory will be helpful in preventing ethical issues as this describes what is right and what is
wrong. This theory will help out in preventing cybercrime by guiding them what should be done.
Deontology: Deontology ethical theory describes that a person should follow his or her
obligation. It contains a lot of positive characteristics. According to this ethical theory, one
should properly follow the obligation and duties (Brown, 2015). This ethical theory will help out
to resolve ethical issues of cybercrime. This theory will help out in maintaining the
confidentiality and security of important information. Ethical theories assist in maintaining the
data secure and safe. This theory refers that every person should have some principles and he or
she should follow these principles.
Contract: This theory says that we all live in society and we have some obligations and duties
towards society. This theory describes that everyone should discharge their duties towards
society properly as we live in society and we should do work for the benefit of society.
According to the contract ethical theory each and, everyone living in society is obliged to society
and should not harm the people of society.
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Virtue: Virtue: It is an ethical theory that judges a person by character in spite by an action that
may detour them from their normal behaviour. It requires certain qualities such as morals, status
and motivation for assessing and understanding what we would call an irregular and unethical
behaviour (Weissbrodt, 2013). For example, if a peer detects a plagiarized passage, the peer will
judge the person's character accordingly. The peer will judge the person more moderately if he
encounters the plagiarized message which is by a plagiarizer who follows the rules. This might
be because the researcher had to work late at night and might have forgotten to credit his source.
On the other hand, a person who has a status of delinquency has chances of being judged bitterly,
and that may happen because of past unethical behaviour.
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Recommendation to Prevent Cyber-crime:
Use of strong password: By using strong passwords people can protect their data. People should
not repeat the password and the password must be complex. A password management
application can help people to protect their data and information.
Keep the software updated: People should keep their software updated to prevent cyber-crime.
Criminals often identify the weakness in the software and then attack the system. By using the
updated software business organisations and individuals can protect themselves from cyber-
crime. Business organisation keep their all the information in the system and if the proper
security controls are not taken into the account then the confidential information can be leaked
out which may harm the reputation of the company. Updated software reduces the chances of
cyber-crime.
Use of full-service internet security suite: People should use the networks which protects them
from the security threats and should use only authorised suite or networks. To be protected from
cyber-crime now they people need to be more secure and aware. Security controls should be
taken into consideration to protect sensitive and personal information.
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Conclusion
It has been concluded that the rate of cyber-crime increasing day by day and it harms to the
people and business organisations. Cyber-crime means crime done over the internet and it can be
done in many ways. Ethical theories are the moral principles which describe the behaviour of
people. Ethical theories in cyber-crime help in reducing the cybercrime and emphasises on
confidentiality. The ethical theories help an important role in information technology ethics. It
focuses on making people aware of what is wrong and what is right. It focuses on the reducing
number of crime done over the internet.
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References:
 Anderson, R., Barton, C., Böhme, R., Clayton, R., Van Eeten, M.J., Levi, M., Moore, T.
and Savage, S., (2013). Measuring the cost of cybercrime. The economics of information
security and privacy (pp. 265-300). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
 Broadhurst, R., Grabosky, P., Alazab, M., Bouhours, B. and Chon, S., (2014). An
analysis of the nature of groups engaged in cybercrime. An Analysis of the Nature of
Groups engaged in Cyber Crime, International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 8(1),
pp.1-20.
 Brown, C.S., (2015). Investigating and prosecuting cybercrime: Forensic dependencies
and barriers to justice. International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 9(1), p.55.
 Herley, C., (2014). Security, cybercrime, and scale. Commun. ACM, 57(9), pp.64-71.
 Huey, L., Nhan, J. and Broll, R., (2013). ‘Uppity civilians’ and ‘cyber-vigilantes’: The
role of the general public in policing cyber-crime. Criminology & Criminal
Justice, 13(1), pp.81-97.
 Lagazio, M., Sherif, N. and Cushman, M., (2014). A multi-level approach to
understanding the impact of cybercrime on the financial sector. Computers &
Security, 45, pp.58-74.
 McGuire, M. and Dowling, S., (2013). Cybercrime: A review of the evidence. Summary
of key findings and implications. Home Office Research report, 75.
 Weissbrodt, D., (2013). Cyber-conflict, Cyber-crime, and Cyber-espionage. Minn. J. Int'l
L., 22, p.347.
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