Case Study: WannaCry hitting the NHS - An Evaluation through Criminological Theories

LO1: Critically evaluate the relevance of criminological work to cybercrime and cyberdeviance-related policies and practices at the national and international level

Case study of “WannaCry hitting the NHS” could be a good one potentially. Make sure you tell your readers that you will be looking at it as an example of 'ransomware,' and remember that you could also look at it as an example of state-sponsored hacking/ransomware as its likely that North Korea's sponsorship was behind it. There's more detail avialble on Moodle under the 'Submit Assessment' button near the top, but remember we're marking the assessment on two specific criteria:

LO1: Critically evaluate the relevance of criminological work to cybercrime and cyberdeviance-related policies and practices at the national and international level

LO2: Critically evaluate approaches to managing cybercrime and cyberdeviance as applied across a range of virtual settings, countries, contexts and systems Meaning :

LO3 means that you need to assess and evaluate your case study, and how it was dealt with and how you think it should have been dealt with, in light of specific criminological work, or even better through a specific criminological theory. For example, Situational Crime Prevention. So make sure you read and cite the readings and theorists on Moodle that we've covered in the course of this unit! This needs to be the theme of the whole assessment.

LO4 is asking you to discuss how the case study was managed in the specific national context (if it's WannaCry and the NHS, then the UK) but you'd also need to discuss and evaluate how ransomware has been dealt with internationally, and tell your readers what you think works, or what you think doesn't work, based on what your theoretical framework suggests. So for example, what management strategies at the national and international level would work in light of what situational crime prevention theories would suggest?

You will be expected to gather data and material on your chosen case across the course of the module starting as soon as you have chosen your case. You will be given ongoing guidance throughout the module, and should ask questions and present points for discussion in the lecture sessions. The final lecture session will be an opportunity to get feedback on the overall content and structure of your study, which you would have been building over the course of the module. You may draw from many sources including press reports, documentaries, policy documents, books, web pages, etc. Synthesis and critical analysis are important elements of this assignment, as are factual correctness, completeness of the answer and accurate formatting/style of writing. The following is a suggested structure for your case study; you must include section headers that clearly identify each:

1. Description of the case: this should be brief.
2. Discussion of the data gathered: for example, where did you get most of your information? How much data was there available to you? How many different sources were there for information?
3. Literature review: what does the research say about this particular type of crime? What are the motivations? Are there theoretical positions?
4. Identification and discussion of the different approaches used to manage the type of phenomena you are exploring: you must make recommendations/proposals for the development of the field in this area.
5. Conclusion: your assessment of the case and the societal response to it.
6. Bibliography: please see below for the number and types of resources you should be drawing upon.
7. Portfolio of supporting material: you must also include a portfolio of material (not part of the word count) which represents the kind of information available about this particular phenomenon (e.g., pictures of any books or films, web pages, videos, photographs, news reports and so on). You will be given guidance in the lecture sessions