Sara Gordon, who has conducted extensive research regarding the psychology and motivations of virus writers and hackers, shared her view on whether there is a psychological difference between cybercriminals and real world criminals in her interview on PBS’s Frontline.
Write a paper based on the previous scenario that includes:
•An assessment of your thoughts on Sara’s views;
•An explanation of whether you agree or disagree with her statements
•An evaluation and assessment of the role of the hacker;
•An answer to the question of can we identify other motivating factors for these behaviors?
The current assignment will be focusing on understanding the psychological gap among the real world criminals and cybercriminals from the perspective of the Sara Gordon. Therefore, assessment will be carried on the views put forward by Sara.
According to me, the research of Sara shows that both cybercriminals and real world criminal has different psychological perspective. The view of Sara made me think that virus or hackers have different motivation factors that made them to conduct a crime. The hackers’ possesses different mindset and skill set in comparison to virus writers. Therefore, I think that Sara has effectively researched and presented the finding and the research provided the factors that motivate the hackers and virus writers to conduct an illegal activity. On the other hand, I also came to know that Sara pointed that some hackers conduct crime only in order to receive pleasure or take revenge from the people that has hurt them at some point of time. Apart from that, Sara also mentioned that virus writers are hackers’ subset and are lean to be socially expert contrasting hackers. The view point of Sara made me to understand that virus writers and hackers are distinct and different from each. It was know that hackers possesses more deep knowledge of computer system and holds high skill set which helps them to hack the system of the people (Nikitina, 2012). Further, the virus writers adopt shallower approach for what they conduct. Moreover, I came to know that hackers have high individual application knowledge whereas virus writers are seemed down upon due lack of essential skills.
Apart from that, if motivation factor is to be assessed then I found that both virus writers and hackers are stimulated by the challenges of technical. It has been analysed that hackers are mostly into the system and try to dominate the system whereas, virus writer discharge a virus into the system which can get spread into the system (Marks, 2012). On the other hand, Sara Gordon mentioned that human writes virus as a technical challenge perception and they do not care about their actions.
The research report presented by Sara Gordon has let a good impression on me. Therefore, I totally agree with the statements made by her in context of the hackers and virus writers. Both the virus writers and hackers have different approach and have their own way to conduct a crime. On the other hand, I also agree that cyber criminals have different psychology while conducting crime. They conduct crime so that they show their hacking knowledge to the world and normally targets group of person or industry and try to damage the file and documents so that they can feel satisfaction about their hacking knowledge skills (Marks, 2012). Apart from that, the psychologies of the real world criminals are different and usually think of harming one particular nation so that they can show their power. Therefore, I consent that virus writers and hackers has their own perspective and motivation to damage the system of other party for their own benefit. On the other side, Sara Gordon also mentioned that media also played important role in portraying the virus writers as a hero and genius person. Thus, I too agree with it and I think that media has to change their action and should not promote the virus writers as a hero as it can motivate other young person to become a virus writer or hackers (Voiskounsky & Smyslova, 2003). Further, Gordon stated that many virus writers do not understand the level of damage they conduct. Therefore, it leads to huge damage of the system and loss of important document. The rapid growth in the technology has changed the way of communication and virus writers take that an advantage to disrupt the people through their virus and hacking skills.
Hackers are considered as those criminals that exploits the weak point in the computer network. It has also been understood that there are number of causes that motivates the hackers to do crime such as enjoyment, protest, challenge or profit. Therefore, hackers take different roles to use their hacking knowledge. The hackers can carry the role of professional crackers, professional criminals, virus writers, script kiddies and code writers (Zare Moayedi & Azgomi, 2012). Therefore, the hackers can employ their knowledge either for benefit of the society or damaging the security of the organisations or individual people for their pleasure. It has been discussed in earlier studies that hackers can track vulnerabilities and list them out and it can result into improved and effective security. On the other hand, the hackers can perform ethical hacking and hackers can scan the weakness in the system security of the organisations which can help the organisation to build an effective security system that can protect their files and important documents. Moreover, the hackers can suggest effective firewall tools or intrusion prevention system devices that can be helpful for the organisation to protect their system from the hackers (Pbs.org, 2015).
Apart from that, hackers can act as cyber specialists on behalf of both private sectors and public sectors and for the government too. As per the survey of KPMG most of the industries of UK are recruiting hackers in order to protect or enhance the cyber security bearing (Carter, 2013). On the other hand, hackers can also take a negative role and can hack the file from the system from the individual or organisation that can seriously affect them. Moreover, the hackers can release wrong message into the system that can lead to collision between two parties. Therefore, it can be evaluated that hackers can take up both good and bad roles.
The hackers conduct the crime of hacking due to personal gain which can be one of the reasons. The violation of computer security for personal gain is regarded as Black hat. The hackers try to rupture into the secure networks with a purpose of modification, destroying, stealing data, etc. Therefore, the hackers remain about the vulnerabilities so that they can conduct crime anytime they wish to. The other factor can be collecting money from the organisations or people. The hackers can hack the system and offer the person to solve their security defect and in turn they can gain enough amounts to fix the system (Nikitina, 2012). On the other hand, the hackers can carry such behaviour in order to conduct revenge from the person that may have brought loss or harm to them. Therefore, they can use revenge as motivating factors to destroy the system and steal all the relevant information that may be useful for the person. Apart from that, a new hacker may conduct hacking to know whether he/she possess hacking knowledge or skills and what is their level to hack the system. Therefore, they may want to test their knowledge whether they are successful in hacking or not. Further, the other motivational factor can be ego of becoming best hackers in comparison to other hackers (Cs.washington.edu, 2015).
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the whole study that hackers and virus writers are serious threats for the society, organisations and nations. The research of Sara Gordon exceedingly pointed the points which are mostly faced in today world. Moreover, hackers and virus writers are different and has different psychology to conduct illegal act. On the other hand, cybercriminals and real world criminals too have different psychology in doing criminal act. Further, hackers can act as both negative and positive roles.
References
Barnett, R. (2013). Web application defender’s cookbook. Indianapolis, Ind.: Wiley Pub., Inc.
Carter, C. (2013). History hackers. [Chippendale]: Pan Australia.
Marks, L. (2012). Winn Schwartau, Cybershock: Surviving hackers, phreakers, identity thieves, internet terrorists and weapons of mass disruption. EDPACS, 46(1), 13-14. doi:10.1080/07366981.2012.687559
Marks, P. (2012). Cybersecurity guru: Hunt for the next generation of hackers. New Scientist, 213(2854), 29. doi:10.1016/s0262-4079(12)60556-9
Nikitina, S. (2012). Hackers as Tricksters of the Digital Age: Creativity in Hacker Culture. The Journal Of Popular Culture, 45(1), 133-152. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2011.00915.x
Voiskounsky, A., & Smyslova, O. (2003). Flow-Based Model of Computer Hackers’ Motivation. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 6(2), 171-180. doi:10.1089/109493103321640365
Zare Moayedi, B., & Azgomi, M. (2012). A game theoretic framework for evaluation of the impacts of hackers diversity on security measures. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 99, 45-54. doi:10.1016/j.ress.2011.11.001
Websites
Cs.washington.edu,. (2015). Cyber-Criminal Activity and Analysis. Retrieved 3 March 2015, from https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/csep590/05au/whitepaper_turnin/team2-whitepaper.pdf
Pbs.org,. (2015). Who Are Hackers – Studying The Psychology Of Vilrus Writers And Hackers | Hackers | FRONTLINE | PBS. Retrieved 3 March 2015, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/hackers/whoare/psycho.html
Sans.org,. (2015). Virus Writers 360. Retrieved 3 March 2015, from https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/malicious/virus-writers-360-1523a
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