International Cybercrime

Primary Task Response: Within the Discussion Board area, write 400–600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.

Research the personality profile of a typical cybercriminal. Then, respond to the following in discussion:

• Provide some details about your findings.
• What are some of the specific sort of crimes that cyber criminals commit?
• Formulate a policy over what society should do about cyber criminals who operate from foreign countries with whom the United States either lacks an extradition treaty, or from countries that are hostile to the United States.

Additional Resources

• Urgent Actions Are Needed to Address Cybersecurity Challenges Facing the Nation
  • The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified four major cybersecurity challenges and 10 critical actions that the federal government and other entities need to take to address them. GAO continues to designate information security as a government-wide high-risk area due to increasing cyber-based threats and the persistent nature of security vulnerabilities.
• Cybercrime: What the FBI Investigates
  • The FBI is the lead federal agency for investigating cyber attacks by criminals, overseas adversaries, and terrorists. The threat is incredibly serious—and growing. Cyber intrusions are becoming more commonplace, more dangerous, and more sophisticated. Our nation’s critical infrastructure, including both private and public sector networks, are targeted by adversaries. American companies are targeted for trade secrets and other sensitive corporate data, and universities for their cutting-edge research and development. Citizens are targeted by fraudsters and identity thieves, and children are targeted by online predators. Just as the FBI transformed itself to better address the terrorist threat after the 9/11 attacks, it is undertaking a similar transformation to address the pervasive and evolving cyber threat. This means enhancing the Cyber Division’s investigative capacity to sharpen its focus on intrusions into government and private computer networks.   

Responses to Other Students: Respond to at least 2 of your fellow classmates with at least a 100-word reply about their Primary Task Response regarding items you found to be compelling and enlightening. To help you with your discussion, please consider the following questions:

• What did you learn from your classmate’s posting?
• What additional questions do you have after reading the posting?
• What clarification do you need regarding the posting?
• What differences or similarities do you see between your posting and other classmates’ postings?

REPLY TO 

Cybercrime has become the new method in which criminals commit their crimes. The advancements of technology have allowed this new type of crime and criminals to emerge. For those that are not aware, cybercrime are crimes committed against people and/or entities via internet. When it comes to the personality profile of a typical cybercriminal, it appears that “according to studies, the “stereotypical” perpetrator of a cybercrime is “male, 12-28 years old, single, and socially dysfunctional, possibly from a dysfunctional family” (Hadzhidimova, et. al. 2019). Though I find this to be odd as some women are also cybercriminals, I continued my research on this question. What I found was that these individuals have heightened personality traits. These traits were “impulsiveness, aggressiveness, rigidity, lies, selfishness, egocentricity, affluently saturated feelings, peculiar orientations and judgements, hard-to-predict behaviour, abstinence from social reality, inability to internalize moral and legal norms, hostility” (Kipane, 2019). Therefore, the foundation to each cybercriminal is their personality.

The sort of crimes that these cybercriminals commit vary but all are committed through the internet. They look for ways to have ransoms paid to them through ransomware and business email frauds. While others look to steal pertinent information such as identity theft through spoofing (FBI, 2022). One example that occurred within the last year was when cybercriminals known as hackers hacked into the Colonial Pipeline system and hacked their system and requested a ransom to give it back. This caused issues on the East Coast with fuel. Though the Cybersecurity and Intelligence Agency became involved the company still paid the hackers money.

Most cybercriminals that commit crimes in our country are operating from foreign countries, those that we do not have extradition treaties with and those that are hostile towards our country such as Russia. Due to the increase in this crime, the United States instituted an agency to protect the cyber world in our country as so many rely on it. Therefore, that is one step in the formulating a policy for these criminals. According to the High-Risk Series, there are four major cybersecurity challenges that need to be addressed. They are “establishing a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy and performing effective oversight, securing federal systems and information, protecting cyber critical infrastructure, and protecting privacy and sensitive data” (United States Accountability Office, 2018). The policy must include ways to cover these challenges. One method to punish these criminals, hence the country that is protecting them is to impose sanctions on the country. Another method is to try and create extradition treaties with the countries that the United States does not have any with. This could be done by ensuring that the death penalty would not be imposed on them.

References

Personality Traits of a Cybercriminal

The personality trait is described to have some key elements that include the following. Firstly, the cybercriminals’ personality traits are believed to be a broad individual psychological perspective that is stable, interpersonal, and harbors some significant differences in the way of thinking, behaving, and the overall feeling of an individual (Kipane, 2019). Cybercriminals’ personality is linked to the internal desires of an individual to violate the law to attain some personal gains, material benefits, or profits from the crime committed. Family influences are known to directly affect the development of one’s personality hence increasing the possibility of conducting cybercrimes. Family aspects such as failure in the process of upbringing children, family deformity, adverse family issues, and social problems contribute to the being of a cybercriminal. Other aspects attached to cybercriminals’ profiles include criminal professionalism, technical knowledge, characteristics of motivation, social characteristics, and gaps in the literature. Cybercriminals are individuals like any other, with a difference in their character, technical knowledge, and upbringing in totality.

Cybercrimes

Cybercriminals’ different types of crimes are broken down into phishing attacks, malware, and online credential violation. In phishing attacks, cybercriminals utilize emails and other malicious websites to source sensitive information from their victims (Sabillon et al., 2016). The cybercriminals pose as trustworthy agencies to which the victim can easily disclose their personal information without suspicion. Phishing attempts can also occur in the form of texts and voicemails. On the other hand, malware is a common form of cybercrime since it involves various formats. Malware can include Trojan viruses, worms, and spyware which are common components of cybercrimes (Buch et al., 2017). Malware leads to activities such as phishing attacks and password abuses. However, most malware attacks can be avoided by installing effective offenses. Lastly, an online credential violation is a form of cybercrime that can appear in numerous ways, such as ransomware, phishing attacks, and credential stuffing. This results in the cybercriminals illegally gaining access to the personal credentials available online of the employees and the consumers in the society.

Policy Actions on Foreign Cybercriminals

Societies can indulge in combating cybercrimes from foreign nations by taking the necessary measures against cybercrimes seriously. Keeping people in a safe online space is the goal of every nation and individual society. Therefore, the policy will highlight strengthening and improving cyberspace for every individual.

1. There will be a compulsory buildup of capabilities, mainly in law enforcement. This is to cover up the prevalent gaps in the various societies that trigger the occurrence of cybercrimes, more so in developing countries.
2. The various involved nations will indulge in strengthening international cooperation and dialogue (Dodaro, 2018). This is between governments, United Nations, and other international and regional organizations in stopping the spread of cybercrime.
3. Individual society members must create and have different banking devices from their daily usage devices. This will help reduce the risk of computer hacking hence avoiding the misuse of banking online credentials.
4. Societal members will be required to be vigilant about the email attachments opened, avoid the questionable sites, and maintain an antivirus program that can easily detect the occurrence of such cybercrimes(Cybercrime., 2016). This will enable society to protect their data and their children from the occurrence of sexual abuse through cybercrime.

Incorporating the above measures will enable societies and governments to keep track of the events occurring online, raise awareness and create a safe online space for different individuals.

Please reply to this discussion post below 

(Chapter 9&10) Nigro, L., Nigro, F., and Kellough, J. (2014). The new public personnel administration. 7th. Independence, Kentucky. Cengage. 

(Chapter 4&5) Sifunda-Evelia, M. (2017). Human resource management practices: A biblical perspective. Singapore: Partridge.

Barbara Jackson 

TuesdayApr 12 at 10:32pm

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Work-Life Balance For All

Body
Fair and equal treatment is a constant issue that affects several aspects of our daily lives. Equality is often desired but is it truly ever gained in the workforce? With an ever-changing society, those societal changes will eventually bleed over into the workforce. Work-life balance for employees with children and families is often observed and respected due to social norms and laws prohibiting discrimination against those workers. Employees that do not have children are now expressing the need to be respected and afforded the same work-life balance as their counterparts that have families and children. There is a need to address the issues in today’s workforce, it is important in creating a homogenous working environment. According to Nigro & Kellough (2014 ), “building a family-friendly and flexible workplace promises to be ongoing challenges for public and non-public employees, and human resource specialists will be expected to play a major role in organizational efforts to meet this challenge”. (p 271)  These challenges have to be addressed to be relevant in today’s labor market.

Has the workforce become unintentionally biased and discriminatory towards non-family employees? The Bible says in James 5:1-5, “My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

Societal prejudice exists and has unintentionally caused possible emotional drain, work overload, and disenchantment with the job, for non-parent employees who have had to take up the slack for the parent employee. As reported by Flynn (2022), “societal prejudice your workplace prejudice is society is set up to reward members for getting married and having children there are tax breaks for children”. To attack some of the issues of fairness, like work hours’ flexibility, family-friendly benefits, and child care help that’s been put in place for the employees that need it, human resource practitioners have to come up with other motivating rewards for the non-parent employee.  It is important that human resource managers understand that what’s good for all one is not good for all when it comes to benefit packages, policies, and procedures reported by Nigro,& Kellough (2014). Blight, Bendat, Featherson & Fonner (2021), argued that “single and childfree employees have been shown to benefit from several forms of support (e.g., flexible work arrangements, supervisory support)”. (p. 41) Child-free adults are seeking the same privileges and exceptions as family-friendly employees are getting. (Leonard, 2022)  Enacting new programs like the “cafeteria plan” will give all employees the ability to use flextime as needed and the benefit is not one-directional. (McGarvey, 2022)  Another work-family balance issue that is often addressed by employers is on-site childcare benefits. Child care assistance is needed to enhance the work environment for all employees, as reported by Connelly, Degraft & Willis (2004), “employers offering direct child care benefits report positive impacts of child care programs on their workers’ performance, as well as reductions in turnover, absenteeism, and recruitment costs.” (p.760) The climate of the job is the responsibility of management and human resources, and inclusive benefits will be needed in today’s workforce environment. Proverbs 16:11 says,” Honest scales and balances belong to the Lord; all the weights in the bag are of his making”.

Biblical Integration 

This week’s video stated that Jesus loved everyone, no matter his or her situation, upbringing, or need, He just loved. Jesus’ worldview in cooperated all with fairness and nonjudgmental love. Employers and organizations have to be cautious and not produce a workforce environment with unfair practices, policies, or treatment of its staff. Ephesians 4:15-16 says, “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work”. Working together grows agency and remembering that each person need other to be build

Conclusion

Employee and employer relationships are important and human resource management need to consider that at all times. Effective relationships produce a cohesive workforce environment that all benefit from. According to Sifuna-Evelia (2017), “it is the duty of the employer to ensure healthy industrial relationships ranging from relations and staff welfare discipline management grievance handling process teamwork and equal opportunity to all.” (p. 53) Work-life balance for all employees regardless of the traditional family dynamics, should be respected by the employer, as a result, inclusive policies and procedures should be put in place to address the needs of the organization.

Please reply to this discussion post below 

(Chapter 9&10) Nigro, L., Nigro, F., and Kellough, J. (2014). The new public personnel administration. 7th. Independence, Kentucky. Cengage. 

(Chapter 4&5) Sifunda-Evelia, M. (2017). Human resource management practices: A biblical perspective. Singapore: Partridge.

Melanie Rouse 

WednesdayApr 13 at 11:34pm

Manage Discussion Entry

Family Friendly Benefits

Creating a collaborative government requires creating a culture that is inclusive and focused on understanding the needs of the community. Nigro et al., (2013) states that to better the world around you, you must first take care of your own house. This requires agencies to review their policies, programs, and practices to ensure equal opportunities for gainful employment for their teams. Although there have been many changes and amendments made to public policy since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to address equity gaps related to race, ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status, there is still gaps in equity that exist. These public policies have targeted employment gaps across multiple areas including gender, race, and many other underserved groups; however, they have fallen short despite decades of efforts (Cepiku & Mastrodascio, 2021). The changing workforce has called for action in addressing working mothers and their families. Women that stay at home and raise their children while their spouse works makes up a very small representation of the general population in the United States (Nigro et al., 2013). This shift has called for agencies to make considerable adjustments to support and uplift families that are among the nation’s workforces.

These policies must include a focus on family friendly benefits to address equity gaps among female employees. Yu (2019) declares that federal programs to promote work-life balance do not address key issues for women including family leave and support and family planning. Many women in today’s workforce are highly skilled, qualified and a great benefit to the workforce. This requires employers to address practices that discriminate against a woman’s ability to have both a family and a career while ensuring that others in the workforce are equally supported as well. “May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples with equity and guide the nations of the earth” (Holy Bible, New International Version, 2011, Psalm, 67). There is a call for balance, social equality and breaking down barriers in employment opportunities for all. Some of the programs that have been developed to address these issues include family-friendly benefits, family leave policies, flexible work programs, schedules, and workplaces and child and elderly care services. These benefits have proven to have clear benefits to communities; however, they have also been criticized for not supporting employees that do not have families.

Impact on Employees without Children

The largest criticism of these programs is that they do not equally support employees that do not have children and that these employees are not treated as generously. Although employees without children may not need to utilize all the services that may be provided, they continue to benefit from programs that can also help provide work-life balance. These programs are implemented in a way that provides flexibility and allow employees without children access to these benefits as well. Employees without children must also be allowed opportunities for flexible work schedules, time off for caring for another family member or parent, benefits for themselves and significant others. In addition to the direct benefits to these employees they also benefit from indirect benefits of these programs. Things like a flexible schedule and location have proven to decrease absences which lowers the strain on employees that do not have children (Nigro et al., 2013). “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Holy Bible, New International Version, 2011, Philippians, 2). Overall, these programs support community wellness which benefits everyone.

Community Benefit 

Any programs that improve work life balance benefit the entire community by improved employee morale, they boost retention and promote healthy working relationships. Flexible work schedules and telework options have proven to improve work life, performance as well as productivity (Nigro et al., 2013). Programs that promote overall employee wellbeing help overcome the critics that feel employees without children are underserved by family friendly benefits. Coverage must be allotted for those that are not part of a traditional family, do not have children but may need to assist in care taking responsibilities for others (Paina et al., 2017). Additionally, a key factor in building the work environment is to promote teamwork and equality for all (Sifuna-Evelia, 2017). As we aim to address worklife balance and employee wellness through these programs we must do so in a way that is good for the entire community not just a single group. “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Holy Bible, New International Version, 2011, Hebrews, 10)

……………….Student 1

Critique the following abstract based on the five elements of an abstract as covered by the text. What elements are present, and what elements are missing?

Start with the issue or problem leading to a need for the research. In the abstract, I believe that the issue that leads to a need for research is pretty clear. How are older job applicants seen by their prospective employers? This is a problem that is seen in real life, and was even mentioned in our introduction posts by one of our classmates. Another example I can think of is women who have children and choose to take a break in their career to raise their children, and then choose to reenter the workforce at a later date.

Indicate the purpose of the study. I don’t think the abstract clearly indicates the purpose of the study, but I think most people can deduce that its purpose would be to find indicate discrepancies in hiring of younger versus older individuals who are both qualified for jobs and why those discrepancies might exist.

State what data will be collected to address this purpose. The abstract indicates that age-diverse North Americans will participate, but does not go into detail about how many participants there are or what the range of ages in the group is.

Indicate qualitative themes, quantitative statistical results, or the mixed methods integrative findings that will likely arise in your study. The abstract indicates a qualitative theme of people who are characterized as older being viewed less favorably than their younger counterparts.

The abstract does list implications of the study, but it did not mention directly who would benefit and why. Again, I feel as though this can be deduced, but it is not clearly stated.

Describe the elements that constitute a good qualitative purpose statement.

According to our textbook, “it is suggested that qualitative research is exploratory and that researchers use it to probe a topic when the variables and theory base is unknown. A good qualitative purpose statement would point out a concept or phenomenon that is occurring and then explains the purpose of studying it (Creswell, 2018). There is less certainty with the “why” with qualitative research. A good qualitative purpose statement focuses on a single concept, uses non-directional language, and provides a general definition of concepts that aren’t as easily understood.

Describe the elements of a good quantitative purpose statement.

For a quantitative purpose statement “the problem is best addressed by understanding what factors or variables influence an outcome”. What causes a reaction in a situation? A good quantitative purpose statement “uses words that connect the independent and dependent variables to indicate that they are related and orders the variables with independent variables being followed by dependent variables. (Creswell, 2018)

Discuss the rationale for using a mixed methods approach.

Mixed methods research might be used when the problem is initially identified, but needs to be expanded upon. If a problem isn’t as black and white then a mixed methods approach could get answers to gray area issues.

Explain how research questions and/or a hypothesis work in conjunction with the purpose statement.

Research questions and hypotheses hone in on the purpose statement and expand upon the ideas and topics introduced in the purpose statement. In qualitative research broad questions are used to expand on ideas and research.

In quantitative research the independent and dependent variables are formed from the question or hypotheses that is formed.

In mixed methods research, according to our text the questions asked should align with the method of research being presented at the time. “For example, if the study begins with a quantitative phase, the investigator might introduce hypotheses. Later in the study, when the qualitative phase is addressed, the qualitative research questions appear.” (Creswell, 2018).

My apologies for posting late, all my days completely run together over here. I’ll make sure to keep better track in the future.

References:

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). Sage.

You Decide – Robbery (POST)

Read the following facts and then answer the questions at the end of the paragraph.

After you post your answer(s), read my first post.  You’ll see what the court decided in this case. Then respond to my post and tell us whether you decided the case the same as the court did.  Did you agree with the court’s decision? Why or why not?

Ronald Williams and the victim were drinking wine with Frank Morrow and an unidentified male. The victim passed out.  Williams rolled the victim onto his side and removed this wallet from his pants pocket.  Williams appealed his robbery conviction.  The Pennsylvania appellate court was asked to determine whether robbery may be committed against a voluntarily intoxicated, unconscious victim.  Did Williams take the victim’s wallet through the “use of force, however slight?”  

REPLY TO 

Collapse SubdiscussionLeticia Carvalho Sousa

Leticia Carvalho Sousa“>Leticia Carvalho Sousa

12:05amApr 17 at 12:05am

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According to the textbook, “larceny, embezzlement, and false pretenses are all directed against wrongdoers who unlawfully interfere with the property interests of others” (p. 1153). The Model Penal Code also touches on the subject that those infractions are still valid if committed with the victims involuntariness. The fact that the victim, in this case, voluntarily drank to the point of being intoxicated, does not imply that another has a right to take advantage of that and do whatever. Nevertheless, the victims condition, does not change the fact that a crime was committed. The legal equation for a crime to qualify as robbery is taking of the property of another from the person or presence of the person, by violence or threat of immediate violence placing another in fear, and the intent to permanently deprive another individual of property (p. 1216). The case presented cannot be charged as robbery, for the fact that there was no violence present. The action of rolling the victim onto his side, and removing the wallet from the victims pocket does not equal to an act of violence. The case can be classified as theft.

Collapse SubdiscussionOlivia Shamon

Olivia Shamon“>Olivia Shamon

YesterdayApr 16 at 8:15pm

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Did Williams take the victim’s wallet through the “use of force, however slight?”

“Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by putting the victim in fear.” Williams didn’t take the victim’s wallet through force, the threat of force, or putting instilling fear in the victim. However, this being the situation, there should be some sort of punishment for Ronald Williams for his actions. “Williams rolled the victim onto his side and removed his wallet from his pants pocket.” In this statement, nothing related to force was used due to the victim being unconscious this worked in William’s favor. Ronald Williams should be charged with theft; theft is a crime against property. For instance, the wallet is the victim’s property (a thing or things belonging to someone; possessions collectively). Therefore due to William appealing his robbery conviction and the Pennsylvania appellate court was asked to determine whether robbery may be committed against a voluntarily intoxicated, unconscious victim. Whether my opinion is no; robbery may not be committed some sort of punishment should take place. This would’ve been a different situation if Williams drugged the victim before taking the wallet from his pants pocket.

Wikipedia contributors. (2022, February 13). Robbery. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbery (Links to an external site.)