Cybercrime Tactics, Technology and Techniques

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Institutional Affiliations

Question 1

Computers and internets have entered the mainstream of people’s life. Today, millions of people including the employees are spending much of their time using computers as well as, mobile devices in sending and receiving emails. Others use computers to maintain databases and surfing the internet. Unfortunately, it has been revealed that hackers who use these technology devices such as computers and mobile phones have never missed obtaining personal information of internet users; as a result, they tend to a crime by hacking into users accounts through network systems. Research shows that hackers use computers to cause crimes by launching hackers’ attacks against vulnerable computer networks.

In a typical workplace, the employers technically own the workspace such as computers, network and many others; as a result, they are entitled to monitor the use of each computer within their workspace. However, these employment settings are seen to be misused by the employees for their personal pursuits. There are a variety of reasons as to why some employers would wish to do a search on employee’s computers without his/her consent. For instance, if the employer may wish to locate a certain document that he/she wants to use, then he may opt to use the employees’ computer without asking for permission. The employer may also be interested to find out if the employees are mishandling any property within the organization as well doing a search to find out if the employee is committing a crime after gathering information from other staffs that the person might be using the internet in downloading child pornography.

On the other hand, there are situations when employers are not allowed to do a search on employee’s computers. For example, employees have right to privacy and so they also deserve respect at workplace. For that reason, employees have to be prepared in mind before the search, since this will help them hiding private information which they might be storing in the computers. Employers on the other hand should ensure that employees become aware of the search and so if there are documents which are confidential should not be accessed. The fourth Amendments limit the government agents to search for and seize a proof or evidence without a warrant. The Amendment states that the right of an individual is to be secure in their persons in opposition to unreasonable searches and seizures shall (Jarret & Bailie, 2003).

Question 2

According to the article where a 17- year-old hacker taps into inactive forum run by the hardcore porn site and using it to expose personal information of 350,000 registered users; this can be justified as hacking but not breaking the law (Theriault, 2012). In 2011, cybercriminals and hackers had taken the lead allowing both ethical and unethical hacking a big business. A good number of ethical and unethical hackers are happy so as to let the whole world know what they have been up to. Groups such as anonymous tend to hack for fun so as to draw attention to an issue by defacing websites as well as, launching distributed-denial-of-services (DDoS) attacks that involves sending huge amount of traffic to knock the websites offline.

In this case, this a 17-year-old hacker can be identified as unethical hacker because after tapping into inactive forum, he later go ahead to expose personal information of the registered people arguing out that his main aim was not to embarrass the customers of that site or to make money, but he wanted to highlight how vulnerable popular websites are. If this was true, then one thing he/she could have done is to hack the site but never to expose information of those involved. For ethical hacking, the hackers have to respect the individual’s company’s privacy.

References

Jarret, M. & Bailie, M. (2003). Searching and Seizing Computers and Obtaining Electronic Evidence in Criminal.

Theriault, C. (2012, February 13). 350,000 users exposed by hardcore porn hack. Retrieved March 18, 2015, from https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/02/13/350000-users-exposed-by-hardcore-porn-hack/