Free Essay

Technology and Cybercriminals

In: Computers and Technology

Submitted By paolacastro88
Words 556
Pages 3
Paola Castro
05/29/2014
Assignment III As technology advances cybercriminals find more ways to hack and access millions of corporate accounts, these crimes are committed in more imaginative, daring, and complex ways. On Wednesday 21, 2014 eBay Inc. announced that hackers raided its network between late February and early March (Jim Finkle, 2014). Little to no information is known about the cyber attacker, only that millions of people were affected. EBay Inc. said cyber hackers stole email addresses, birthdays and other identity information between late February and early March 2014, but still had found no sign of unauthorized access to financial or credit card information, which the company states is stored separately in encrypted formats (Soham Chatterhee, 2014). It is also known that the hackers had access to over 145 million accounts and personal information, like address, phone numbers, and even birthdays, that is why eBay urged all their users to change their passwords (Jim Finkle, 2014). The cyber-attack did not only affect the users, but also the investors, eBay's shares fell as much as 3.2 percent on Wednesday after the company revealed the attack on a database that also compromised encrypted passwords (Soham Chatterhee, 2014). Authorities and cyber forensics states that they still do not have a suspect. Experts state that it's not uncommon for large corporations to take weeks to understand the full impact of an attack, because hackers are often able to steal data without leaving obvious clues (Jim Finkle, 2014), in this case the only information known is that hackers gained access using the identifications of three corporate employees, ultimately making their way to the user’s database. Tying the information known about the cyber-attacker with the theories of crime it could be assume that different theories took place. One of them could be the rational choice theory, it states that people are rational and weight the potential cost and benefit of committing a crime (McQuade, 2006), since the hacker knew he was attacking a big corporation. Also because of the fact that the hacker got the credential of three employees of eBay, it can also be inferred that the routine activity theory took place, the cyber hacker could have been a motivated offender who has suitable target and the absence of capable guardians (McQuade, 2006). Cyber-attacks happen more often and every day to millions of people, sometimes people are aware but most of the time they are not. I personally received an email message from eBay Inc. advising for me to change my password. Like previously mentioned there is no information on the cyber hacker and his intentions to why he wanted to hack into eBay’s database. One reason can be because the pool of suspects grows to be anyone who has access to a computer.
Works Cited
Jim Finkle, D. S. (2014, May 27). Cyber Thieves Took Data On 145 Million eBay Customers By Hacking 3 Corporate Employees. Retrieved from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/cyber-thieves-took-data-on-145-million-ebay-customers-by-hacking-3-corporate-employees-2014-5
McQuade, S. (2006). Understanding and Managing Cybercrime. Boston: Pearson Education Inc.
Soham Chatterhee, L. M. (2014, May 21). EBay asks 145 million users to change passwords after cyber attack. Retrieved from Reuters: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/21/uk-ebay-password-idUKKBN0E10ZL20140521

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