Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

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CHAPTER 9
Understanding the situational awareness in cybercrimes
For operational use and in order to create a repository—the grid above can be 
used for each cybercrime incident. A mock example has been included to show 
how it could be used. The first section of the grid enables a tick box system where 
multiple motivations may be ticked. For instance a decision may be made that the 
case is primarily politically motivated but has moral and promotional motivations 
(see example above). Different investigative officers may have different opinions 
or evidence about the motivations—there is no limit on how many boxes can be 
ticked—especially given that some cases may be complex in nature—although it 
is recommended that decisions are made about the primary, secondary and tertiary 
motivations rather than clustering motivations into one category. It is possible that 
there are no secondary or tertiary motivations—in these cases the boxes can be left 
blank. Information relating to the cybercrime case can be included to the right of 
the table and can be as detailed as is necessary. The “context” and “other” boxes al-
low for any field notes or important information relating to the case to be included. 
The “who” box relates to potential suspects and can also include potential victims. 
If information is not known, again these boxes can be left blank. This design has 
purposefully been created to be flexible given that each case will be made up of dif-
ferent characteristics.
The financial motives for cybercrimes can be fraudulent and for financial gain 
however financial motivations can also relate to disruption of financial systems. 
Political motives link to the support or countering governmental policies or actions 
and can include state sponsored attacks, espionage and propaganda.
Moral motives can be associated with fighting for freedom, rights, and ethics, or 
against exploitation and oppression. Religious systems could fall into this category 
and are twofold: attacks by religious groups against other religious systems/beliefs; 
attacks toward religious groups against their belief systems/exploitation/religion