Social Science Principals

Some principles that this article relates to is objectivity and parsimony. The objectivity in this article refers to the fact that the researchers should not promote their opinion when it comes to the punishment of the cybercrime traffickers. The parsimony in this article refers to the researchers being able to simply articulate their data and program for anybody to be able to understand.

Research Questions

The main research question in the article “Adapting cybersecurity practice to reduce wildlife cybercrime” is how to stop wildlife trafficking and extinction with a cybersecurity-based solution. Another research question in this article is how to bring these traffickers to justice.

Types of Research Methods Used

The study used quantitative research methods to gather data from federal databases of previous trafficking paths. They also had to use secondary research methods to identify patterns of when and where to intercept cybercriminal-initiated wire transfers and shipments of wildlife products.

Types of Data

The data used is from a federal database that is made up of both unrestricted access data and secure data. This data is turned into a simulator that makes an actionable intelligence report. These reports contain a detain list, a surveil list, an interdict list, and a recovery time. The detain list is a list of the criminals that are recommended to be detained for a maximum disruption effect. The surveil list is a list of criminals that are still under surveillance due to lack of evidence an information on their crime. The interdict list is a list of predicted actions that the wildlife trafficking syndicate (WTS) can do and when and where those actions may take place. The recovery time is an estimate of how long it takes for the criminals in the WTS to recover from the criminals that have been detained.

Concepts from PowerPoints

A concept that was discussed that relates to this article is individual motives. The motive for most of the WTS criminals seem to be money. Some of them may also do it because they are bored and want to be entertained. Some of them are also politicians doing it for political reasons.

Challenges of Marginalized Groups

In this article, the marginalized “group” would be the wildlife that is being trafficked. They have no power to overrun the criminals and are going extinct. Certain animals are marginalized more than other due to rarity and or usefulness of the animal.

Overall Contributions

The overall contributions of this study are many. This study explains how the WTS can be charged as cybercriminals. The study also explains how actions can be predicted using simulations to halt the trafficking of wildlife. Another contribution is that all the software of the database and its control procedure is openly available. Lastly, this article gives a thorough solution on cracking down the WTS and bringing them to justice.

Haas, T. C. (2023). Adapting cybersecurity practice to reduce wildlife cybercrime. Journal of Cybersecurity, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyad004