Understanding Cyber Crime: Motivational Factors and Effects

INTRODUCTION

Cyber crime is an illegal act in which the "computer" is used as a tool or target or both (Vincent, 2017). Cyber crime is considered to be the latest and fastest growing area of ​​crime (Vincent, 2017). The incidence of cyber crime is increasing day by day (Iqbal & Beigh, 2017). This article describes cyber crime and its incidence, cyber law and the major measures taken by the government to prevent it. Cyber criminals are involved in various criminal activities by taking advantage of internet speed, convenience and anonymity and exploiting people around the world by making them their victims (Yar, 2013). The crimes committed by them include phishing, credit card and debit card related fraud, bank robbery, illegal downloading, child pornography and distribution of viruses. This project report consists of understanding theoretical explanation about the reason behind commitment of cyber crimes by individuals.

With the speed at which technology has progressed, at the same speed, human dependence on internet has also increased. Internet is now ubiquitous (Brunty, et al., 2014). Apart from providing several benefits to users, internet and social media also provides opportunities to perpetrators to victimise individuals in an online environment (Brunty, et al., 2014). At the same time, regulating crime in online environments is difficult and challenging because of the nature of Internet as a phenomenon that transcends borders; in terms of criminal enterprise, Internet represents globalisation which also facilitates criminal activity across national borders (Williams, 2013). As Internet allows ease of social networking, online shopping, storing data, gaming, online study, online jobs, etc, it also allows ease of victimisation (Wall, 2007). Cyber crimes include cyber extortion, identity theft, credit card fraud, hacking of personal data from computers, phishing, illegal downloading, cyber stalking, virus propagation, and so on. It is to be noted that software theft is also a form of cyber crime, in which it is not necessary that the cyber criminal commit the crime through online portal. Cybercrime can be classified in two ways:

1. Offences in which computers are attacked. Examples of such crimes are hacking, virus attacks, DOS attacks, etc.

2. Offences in which computer is used as a weapon / device /. These types of crimes include cyber terrorism, IPR violations, credit card fraud, EFT fraud, pornography, etc (Furnell, 2002).

According to the cyber crime theory explained in module, there are different motivational factors and effects of cybercrime. These are explained below:

1. Monetary Profit: The principal motivation for many cyber crimes is to earn monetary benefit. Cyber criminals use phishing to steal money from bank accounts. Phishing requires special profession in web design, coding, encryption and decryption of data and feel users like it is original website (Jaffar, et al., 2016).

2. Political Motive: Some kinds of nefarious cyber activity can be related to political groups who also use websites and networking for spreading fake news and viral videos (Harvey, 2014). They usually target social media like whatsapp, facebook, twitter and other social sites. This cyber crime is not committed by individual but initiated by group and usually get support from political parties. Although this may not always equate to cyber crime, it is impactful and has much influence in causing social and cultural shifts (Harvey, 2014).

3. Sexual impulses: Some countries ban provoking sites called porn sites due to accepting it as the cause behind rape and all feminine crimes. Child pornography is serious crime and children have been particularly vulnerable to online sexual crimes (Wheeler, 2003).

4. Entertainment: It was found through secondary report of cyber crime theories that many of the cyber criminals commit cyber attack only for fun and enjoyment for which Internet acts as a medium. Many hackers commit the crime of hacking just to become famous as they target government sites or defence sites (Holt, 2013). Sometimes hackers are hired for the job of protecting data and information of companies or government sites (Yar and Steinmetz, 2019). However, the latter kind of hacking may not be a cyber crime, yet provide entertainment to the hacker. Therefore, the motivation for the act of hacking may remain the same but in certain cases they are not considered to be crimes.

5. Emotional Motivators: Some of the cases also detected who commits cyber crime for emotional reasons such as show anger, employees fired with no reason, business associates who feel cheated and feeling of revenge. Such criminals are accepted as very dangerous due to their fixed motives and they are ready to take full risks. Individual expert in IT and cyber attack and motivates to take revenge with full planning can be unstoppable and could impact large population.

Cybercrime falls under 3 major categories: personal, property and government. In other words, cyber crimes are mainly committed against a person / body, property and government. These are explained below:

Cybercrimes against individuals - Such crimes, although online, affect the lives of real people. Some of these crimes include cyber harassment and cyber stalking, distribution of child pornography, various types of spoofing, credit card fraud, human trafficking, identity theft and online defamation (Yar, 2013). Online defamation involves publishing of malicious or illegal information against an individual or group in online environment and can have serious effects on the victim’s reputation and standing in the society (McQuade, 2006).

Cybercrimes against property - Some online crimes are against property, such as against computers or servers or by means of it (Yar, 2013). These crimes include hacking, virus transmission, cyber and typo squatting, copyright infringement, IPR infringement, etc (Yar, 2013)..

Cybercrime against a particular government: It is considered to be the most serious cyber crime. Such crime against the government is also known as cyber terrorism. Government cyber crime involves the government website or military website being hacked (Holt, 2013). It is important to note that when a cyber crime is committed against the government, it is considered an attack on the sovereignty of that nation and an act of war.

In the UK, the principal legislation for cyber crime is the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which addresses cyber crimes like hacking and ransoming and other kind of cyber attacks. This is the principal legislation under which cyber criminals are prosecuted. Crimes like phishing and identity theft can also engage the Fraud Act 2006. Crimes like electronic theft can also engage the Theft Act 1990. Cyber terrorism would engage the Terrorism Act 2000. There is also a range of cyber security laws in England and Wales that are applicable like Data Protection Act 2018, Communications Act 2003, and Official Secrets Act 1989, to name a few. These laws address different kinds of cyber crimes.

Theoretical Explanation of Cyber Crime: Rational Choice Theory

Cornish and Clarke (1986) explained three components of the rational choice in context of why individuals would commit crime. The first component relates to the belief of the individual that the performance of the criminal act is to their benefit. Thus, criminal decision-making becomes a rational processing of the cost and the benefits of the criminal act with the individual perceiving that the commission of the criminal act provides more benefit than cost. Second, rational choice theory requires a crime-specific focus to capture the idiosyncrasies of varied needs attached to a criminal act. Thus, different individuals are driven by different motivations for the commission of the crime. Third, Rational Choice Theory makes a distinction between criminal involvement and the criminal event, with the former being the process that an individual uses to become involved in or desist from a crime and the criminal event being the decision to participate in a specific crime (Cornish & Clarke, 1986).

There are certain cyber deviant behaviour that can be explained on the basis of Rational Choice Theory; for example in one study the researchers found that in an organisation, the employees' intention to comply with Internet use policy is affected by cost–benefit assessments, personal norms and organisational context factors (Li, et al., 2010). Thus, perceived benefits, formal sanctions, and security risks can determine whether the employee of an organisation will comply with the Internet use policy or not (Li, et al., 2010). The Rational Choice Theory has also been used to explain how and why individuals commit crimes like digital piracy based on their perceptions of the utility of the commission of the crime to themselves (Higgins, 2007). While the Rational Choice Theory does explain the commission of cyber crimes to some extent, it is not able to explain the differences between individuals on the basis of gender or other mediating factors as to why they would or not commit certain cyber crimes (Higgins, 2006 ).

Is Rational Choice Theory Useful in Explaining Cyber Crime

Rational choice theories may not offer adequate explanation for crimes that are described as ‘expressive crimes’; these are crimes where individuals show an increased tendency to engage in criminal decision making strategies due to the subjectivities and emotions attached to the material values and cultural logic of the contemporary times (Hayward, 2007).

Hacking may be explained as an expressive crime in that context because in many instances of hacking the individual may be involved in commission of the act due to desire for excitement and entertainment and not because of some rational choice involved in the crime. The crime of hacking is not always committed for the purpose of some financial gain. Many hackers commit the crime of hacking just to become famous or to derive some kind of entertainment value out of the act of hacking (Holt, 2013). Therefore, rational choice theory may not always provide an explanation for cyber crime.

Comparison of Rational Choice Theory with Other Theoretical Explanations of Crime

There are different theoretical constructs that have been used to explain the commission of crime in criminological literature. In this section, the Rational Choice Theory is compared with Social Learning Theory, General Strain Theory, and Lifestyle Exposure and Routine Activities theory in how these theories provide explanation for the commission of cyber crime.

The Social Learning Theory seeks to explain why individuals commit crimes on the basis of the premise that observation and imitation behaviour is responsible for individuals learning criminal behaviour from each other (Kemshall, 2011). Individuals may learn criminality from their immediate family, friends, and social backgrounds. Social Learning Theory was developed by Bandura, on the premise that individuals learn behaviours from their childhood experiences and these learnings form the patterns for lifelong learning (Bandura & Walters, 1963). Behaviours are learned through observation according to the Social Learning Theory. This would mean that in the context of cyber crime, individuals learn criminal behaviour from each other. Social Learning Theory has been used to explain the development of deviant behaviour in individuals (Mazur, 2015). Social learning may involve acquisition of values and patterns of behaviours that may eventually turn into criminality (Schmalleger, 1996). In the context of cyber crime, the Social Learning Theory has been used to explain how cyber deviance can be mediated by race and sex and how social learning can be a second-order latent construct explaining a large variation in cyber-deviance (Holt, et al., 2010 ). Social Learning Theory is more apt in explaining differences that exist in certain cyber crimes like software piracy, which are based on the gender differences (Higgins, 2006 ). It has been found in research that social learning theory reduces the gender gap in software piracy and social learning theory is necessary for a complete understanding of software piracy (Higgins, 2006 ).

Theoretical explanations for cyber crimes have also been given in the form of the lifestyle exposure and routine activities theory (Leukfeldt & Yar, 2016). These theories primarily explain the link between victims and their victimisation. These theories see the convergence of offender and victim as the reason why crime takes place (Pratt & Turanovic, 2016). Lifestyle exposure views risk to the victim from the perspective of the victim behaviours exposing the victim to criminal victimisation (Pratt & Turanovic, 2016). Routine activity theory sees the risk from the perspective of event which led to the opportunity for the commission of the crime (Pratt & Turanovic, 2016). Both routine activities and lifestyle exposure theories emphasise on the role of the victims in their victimisation (Fisher & Lab, 2010). From the perspective of these theories, the victim of cyber crime may be victimised due to the lifestyle exposure or a particular event that exposed them to the risk of the attack (Leukfeldt & Yar, 2016).

The Lifestyle Exposure and Routine Activities theory can explain the incidence of cyber crime to some extent but all cyber crimes cannot be explained with the help of these theories. It may also be argued that the nature of cyber crime is complex and there are many actions like hacking, which are committed for criminal activity as well as for government. Hacking may form part of defence security for many countries (Holt, 2013). Underground agencies of military with no identity work day and night to encrypt secret codes of enemy country to know about their upcoming planning and strategies and this also includes some hacking activity on their part (Broadhurst, 2006). Thus, the nature of cyber crime is not just explained on the basis of the action but on the basis of victimisation. In the case of hacking, it is not considered to be a crime when done for the government.

Another theoretical explanation that can provide an insight into why people may commit cyber crimes is the General Strain Theory. The Strain theories were first developed to explain the higher rate of offending by individuals from the lower classes by linking the commission of crime to the pursuit of economic goals (Agnew, et al., 2009, p. 35). The Strain criminologists argued that individuals from thee lower classes commit crime because they are frustrated by their inability to achieve monetary goals (Agnew, et al., 2009). Thus, commission of crime became a way to achieve these monetary goals. The General Strain Theory explains the commission of crime from the perspective of achievement of certain economic goals. Insofar as the cyber crime is committed for the purpose of achieving some economic goals, the General Strain Theory will be able to provide an explanation of such crime in a way that Rational Choice Theory may not. Thus, cyber crimes like phishing can also be explained by the General Strain Theory. However, there are many other cyber crimes, like hacking, cyber terrorism, online stalking, that cannot be explained by General Strain Theory (but may be explained by Rational Choice Theory) because these crimes are not motivated by economic considerations.

The central premise of the General Strain theory is that certain strains lead to the commission of white collar crimes, these including the inability to achieve valued goals, or the actual or threatened loss of material possessions (Agnew, et al., 2009). Income or power related strains can be resolved through crimes of economic nature, but there can also be other motivations for cyber crime (Agnew, et al., 2009). A report on cyber crimes explained that 44 per cent of cyber criminals consists of people who have done computer courses from an institute but, have committed cyber crime due to lack of job or money (Shinder and Cross, 2008). This may provide some support for General Strain Theory explanation of cyber crimes in conditions where crime is the consequence of frustration with lack of opportunities to earn money or have employment. However, there are other instances of cyber crimes that are not motivated by such economic causes.

Cyber attacks include intentional large-scale disruption of the computer network through means such as computer viruses, particularly in a personal computer connected to the Internet (Vincent, 2017). Cyber crime can also include victimisation of vulnerable individuals, such as children who may be subjected to sexual crimes in online environments, like pornography. Actions like hacking can be done legally when done on behalf of the government and can also constitute crimes when done to victimize others. Cyber crime therefore provides a complex notion that is not explained by a single theoretical construct.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, cyber crimes are a complex field which encompass different kinds of crimes and criminal behaviours, all of which cannot be explained by a single theoretical construct. Different criminal behaviours can be explained with the help of different theories in criminology. No one theory is adequate to explain the entire range of criminal behaviour that comes within the domain of cyber crimes. Similarly, there are different laws and legislations that are enacted to address the entire range of criminal behaviour that are involved in cyber crimes. This suggests that cyber crimes are complex and varied in nature and require different kinds of responses from theoretical as well as legal perspectives.

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