Corporate crimes, commonly referred to as white-collar crimes, comprise a whole veer of offenses, but some features unite them. White-collar crimes refer to illegal, non-violent activities often committed by businesses or individuals for personal or financial gain. The transformations undergone by these white-collar crimes have been promoted by technological innovations such as internet development. The rise of internet use has enhanced the extensive use of various cybercrimes and primarily led to the fusion between computer crimes and white-collar crimes.
Most of the crimes used on the internet are white-collar crimes because most of these offenses are financially motivated and does not involve any kind of physical violence ( Artiningsih, 2017) . Before technological innovation, white-collar crimes were committed without the use of a computer. However, currently, because of the easily accessible computers and the internet, these crimes occur widely. Any kind of crime committed on the internet is commonly referred to as cybercrime, and when the crime is financially motivated and non-violent, it becomes a white-collar crime. Hence, the fusion between cybercrimes and white-collar crimes. This essay examines why particular persons might commit certain crimes in certain conditions and specific white-collar crime theories that exist.
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Crime Category
From the categories listed, the internet fraud category links with cybercrime and uses software or internet services to take advantage of the victims or defraud them ( Mirić, 2018) . Multiple schemes of internet crimes have stolen millions of dollars from the victims each year. Some examples of internet fraud include hacking, data breach, malware, and phishing. In this crime category, data breaching is the most common form of internet fraud that affects many organizations and companies. Data breaching is leaking of crucial and confidential information to unauthorized persons ( Artiningsih, 2017) . Also, data breaching refers to releasing confidential information from a trusted location to an insecure environment, resulting in revenue loss, intellectual property loss, and brand reputation losses.
The other common form of internet fraud is ransomware. Ransomware is a special type of malware that targets technical weaknesses in organizations and companies. This type of malware normally denies the availability of critical data or systems. Phishing is another form of internet fraud that occurs mostly. The attackers normally send spoofed emails to the targeted individual and deceive them into acquiring personal and sensitive data such as credit card numbers and passwords. These forms of internet fraud have increased because several businesses and consumers depend entirely on the internet to conduct transactions. Many consumers and organizations have greatly incurred many losses via the internet, and the fraudulent are difficult to trace ( Modic & Anderson, 2015) . More awareness regarding hacking threats incidents and recommendations for damage detection, damage preventions, and damage limitation is essential.
Real-World Example One: JPMorgan Bank Data Breach
In 2015, three people were charged with stealing data from millions of people around the globe. This internet fraud became one of the significant sophisticated attacks because it secured a large volume of bank account data for an unknown purpose. The three men described the incident as the most significant financial institution data theft in the current century ( Artiningsih, 2017 ). While operating in Israel, the trio stole data from JPMorgan, one of the major banks in the United States, and sold it to a larger network of accomplices.
From the attack, the three men retrieved data for approximately 83 million customers from the bank ( Artiningsih, 2017 ). By selling the data stolen to a larger network accomplice, the trio made hundreds of million dollars. The attackers also stole the information regarding the bank news and performance alongside personal information. The bank information that was stolen allowed the three men to make an enormous amount of money by manipulating the company's stock prices. The trio facilitated large payment processing for the criminals and illegal bitcoin exchange using fake identity cards, causing massive damage to the bank.
In this case, the United States Secret Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigations agency undertook the investigations to find the attackers and scope of the attack. After the two agencies' investigation, the three men were identified as involved in hacking the bank. Two of the three men were arrested in Israel by Israel police. The other individual remained a fugitive because the investigators did not determine his actual location.
Criminology Theory for JPMorgan Bank Data Breach Case
The criminology theory attempting to explain why the three men decided to hack JPMorgan is the strain theory. This criminology theory states that certain factors or stressors make individuals engage in crimes. Individuals tend to engage in crimes because they cannot achieve society's goals, such as financial stability. The development of this theory was in the midst of the 1930s economic depression, thus not surprisingly focusing on the inability to achieve monetary success type of strain. According to Merton, everyone in the country is encouraged to strive for financial success regardless of the class position ( Deflem & Triplett, 2018) . Individuals are socialized into expecting success yet not accomplishing it due to limited opportunities. A ‘strain’ occurs when a gap exists between desire and the means to attain them; hence people resort to crime to succeed. More so, strain theory posits that crime happens when there are not enough legitimate opportunities for individuals to accomplish common society success goals ( Deflem & Triplett, 2018) . Merton denotes that such occurs if the legal means of achieving financial success in the USA structural organization are not equitably distributed or difficult, if not impossible, to access them.
Usually, individuals engage in crime and especially in income-generating crimes, after facing frustrations towards achieving cherished life goals. When individuals find themselves not in a position to achieve financial goals through a legal process, they engage in illegal acts such as crimes to achieve their desired goals. As such, the three men who hacked JP Morgan bank did so to accomplish their financial success because they could not endure the strain or lower their financial stability goals. In pursuing their goals, the trio decided to hack the bank, stole personal data, and sold it to a larger network. By selling the data, they could generate hundreds of million dollars hence solving their financial instabilities.
Real-World Example Two: Capital One Data Breach
In 2019, after a cloud misconfiguration at Capital One, data of more than 100 million customers were compromised ( Lu, 2019 ). The massive data breach also hit approximately 6 million people living in Canada. Due to the cloud's misconfiguration, the hacker could access bank account numbers and social security numbers. The attack became one of the biggest data breaches to ever happen to a financial institution. Capital One bank reported that 80, 000 linked account numbers and 140,000 Social Security numbers were compromised in previous years ( Lu, 2019 ). The information stolen by the hacker was taken from a credit card application submitted to a bank based in Virginia.
No money was lost in the attack because no credit card login credentials and account numbers were exposed. Capital One is expected to spend approximately 150 million dollars to settle the claims of a data breach (( Lu, 2019 ). The hacker only stole personal data after accessing the information on the victim's cloud infrastructure, infiltrated the data, and developed a program that could scan cloud customers through a firewall misconfiguration of a web application.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the agency that undertook the investigations and found out that the attack was conducted by a 33-year older woman, Thompson Paige ( Lu, 2019 ). The accused, former Amazon software engineer, was arrested in Seattle and charged. According to the FBI investigation, the woman had accessed the bank's data through a misconfigured firewall, whereas she was to face 25 years' imprisonment. The FBI also accused the woman of breaching Capital One data and 30 other organizations and companies.
Criminology Theory for Capital One Data Breach Case
Social disorganization theory applies to this case since it focuses on the immediate social environment like a family or a peer group. Social disorganization theory states that an individual social or physical environment is responsible for the behavioral choices a person makes ( Kubrin & Wo, 2016 ). According to this theory, crime is associated with concepts such as social integration and group cohesion. It seeks to explain the reason why crime rates vary from one community to another.
The accused, Thompson Paige, is a transgender woman. Because of her gender, her immediate social environment might not be fair because transgender individuals are marginalized in society. Such might have frustrated her to engage in crime since it is a personal factor and not societal. Also, the accused is a former software engineer at Amazon, and being in an unfair environment, and even jobless might have triggered the woman to commit the crime. According to social disorganization theory, family disruption, ethnic heterogeneity, residential instability, and low socioeconomic status will positively predict community crime ( Kubrin & Wo, 2016) . This theory best suits the Capital One Data Breach Case as Thompson Paige's job loss might result in residential instability and low socioeconomic status. Such can be contributing factors to motivate one to commit white-collar crime. Consequently, several policy implications are recommended by the social disorganization theory.
References
Artiningsih, A. (2017). Data breaches and identity theft: A case study of us retailers and banking. Jurnal Universitas Paramadina , 13 , 1476-1496. http://journal.paramadina.ac.id/index.php/upm/article/download/112/65
Deflem, M., & Triplett, R. A. (2018). Anomie, strain, and opportunity structure: Robert K. Merton’s paradigm of deviant behavior. The Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Criminology , 140. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mathieu_Deflem/publication/321007149_Anomie_Strain_and_Opportunity_Structure_Robert_K_Merton's_Paradigm_of_Deviant_Behavior/links/5c795656a6fdcc4715a6bd41/Anomie-Strain-and-Opportunity-Structure-Robert-K-Mertons-Paradigm-of-Deviant-Behavior.pdf
Kubrin, C. E., & Wo, J. C. (2016). Social disorganization theory’s greatest challenge: Linking structural characteristics to crime in socially disorganized communities. The Handbook of Criminological Theory , 4 , 121-136. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781118512449#page=137
Lu, J. (2019). Assessing the cost, legal fallout of capital one data breach. SSRN Electronic Journal . https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3438816
Mirić, F. (2018). Internet fraud as a form of cybercrime. Zbornik Radova Pravnog Fakulteta Nis , 57 (80), 531-542. https://doi.org/10.5937/zrpfni1880531m
Modic, D., & Anderson, R. (2015). It's all over but the crying: The emotional and financial impact of internet fraud. IEEE Security & Privacy , 13 (5), 99-103. https://doi.org/10.1109/msp.2015.107
