Course Outline
SEC708 Psychology of Cybercrime
Course Coordinator:Dennis Desmond (ddesmond@usc.edu.au) School:School of Science, Technology and Engineering
2026Semester 1
Online |
Online | You can do this course without coming onto campus, unless your program has specified a mandatory onsite requirement. |
Please go to unisc.edu.au for up to date information on the
teaching sessions and campuses where this course is usually offered.
What is this course about?
Description
In this online course you will be introduced to the theories that explain how scammers, identity thieves and cybercriminals achieve their deception. You will also develop your knowledge of human behaviours, cognitive influences, and the psychosomatic impacts for victims of these crimes. Learn how to build prevention and awareness frameworks and campaigns, including underpinning performance measures which address consumer, institutional and broader response system requirements. You will also examine deceptive conduct and its behavioural levers and dependencies.
How will this course be delivered?
| Activity | Hours | Beginning Week | Frequency |
| Online | |||
| Online | 2hrs | Week 1 | 13 times |
Course Topics
- Cyberpsychology
- History of cybercrime and scams.
- Online scams – definition and types.
- Economics of cybercrime
- Summary of the most revalent and costly cybercrime scams
- Modern scams and the broader history of deception?
- Criminological theories to understand cybercrime-related deviance
- The impact of anonymising technologies and the online environment on human behaviours
- Scammers’ methodologies
- Victim Psychology
- Common causes of identity theft and the risks it presents to individuals and organisations
- How identity theft is enabled, prevented, detected and responded to by organisations in different sectors
- The role of government and particularly law enforcement in the cybercrime and identity theft response landscape
- The responsibilities of organisations impacted by identity fraud and identity theft
- Changes to improve Australia’s resilience to identity fraud and to improve organisations’ responses
- Immediate and ongoing financial impacts of identity compromise and identity theft
- Immediate and ongoing emotional and psychological impacts?
- The typical response journey for a victim of identity compromise or identity theft
- Individuals’ experiences when seeking assistance from organisations such as financial institutions and law enforcement
- Organisational support to improve their engagements with victims of identity compromise and identity theft, and where can they look to improve
- Scam methodologies
- Prevention and awareness strategies, including public awareness campaigns.
- How theories from criminology can assist our understanding of cybercrime prevention and awareness.
- How to effect behavioural change among online users.
- The measures organisations and service providers can take to minimise victimisation.
- How legal measures can reduce victimisation.
- Cyber bulliying
- Cyber stalking
- The role of the Internet in facilitating radicalisation.
- Overt and covert uses of the Internet by extremist and terrorist organisations.
- Radicalisation mechanisms.
- Group identity and psychology
What level is this course?
700 Level (Specialised)
What is the unit value of this course?
12 units
How does this course contribute to my learning?
| Course Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this course, you should be able to... | Graduate Qualities Completing these tasks successfully will contribute to you becoming... | |
| 1 | Critique key components and processes involved in historical through to contemporary forms of cybercrime offending. | Creative and critical thinker |
| 2 | Apply behavioural and criminological frameworks that explain cybercrime offending. | Empowered |
| 3 | Identify attributes of cybercrime victimisation and the response system. | Knowledgeable |
| 4 | Use analytical skills to construct cybercrime profiles, prevention and awareness models. | Empowered |
| 5 | Explain key ethical and practice challenges associated with cybercrime prevention and response from a multi-stakeholder perspective. | Ethical |
Am I eligible to enrol in this course?
Refer to the UniSC Glossary of terms for definitions of “pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites”.
Pre-requisites
Not applicable
Co-requisites
Not applicable
Anti-requisites
Not applicable
Specific assumed prior knowledge and skills (where applicable)
Not applicable
Microcredential Information
Not applicable
How am I going to be assessed?
Grading Scale
Standard Grading (GRD)
| High Distinction (HD), Distinction (DN), Credit (CR), Pass (PS), Fail (FL). |
Details of early feedback on progress
Using marking rubrics, students will participate in continuous peer and self-assessment tasks. You will receive weekly formative feedback in tutorials from week 3 to assist with developing your assessment skills and completing assessment tasks. Tutorial review questions will be uploaded weekly and the accommodation of online chat forums will assist in developing peer-led learning experiences.
Assessment tasks
| Delivery mode | Task No. | Assessment Product | Individual or Group | Weighting % | What is the duration / length? | When should I submit? | Where should I submit it? |
| All | 1 | Oral and Written Piece | Group | 20% | 10 minutes per presentation per week plus feedback |
Week 4 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All | 2 | Activity Participation | Individual | 30% | 2000 words |
Week 9 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All | 3a | Practical / Laboratory Skills | Group | 10% | 2 hours |
Refer to Format | In Class |
| All | 3b | Report | Individual | 40% | 3000 words |
Week 13 | Online Assignment Submission with plagiarism check |
| All - Assessment Task 1:Case Study Development | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal of this assessment is to provide opportunities for you to work in a group of between two and four students to learn and apply behavioural and criminological frameworks to a real-life case. |
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| Product: | Oral and Written Piece | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | Students are required to present online to their peers within their tutorial using visual aids accessible to their audience. They will support the presentation with a written report on the case for submission by Friday of Week 4. Groups will be formed, and case studies assigned, in your Week 2 tutorial. Working in tutorials and in an online wiki, each group will develop their presentation through a synthesis of their case and the application of relevant theoretical frameworks that assist to determine the motivation of offending, the impact of offending from a multi-stakeholder perspective, anticipated intervention responses, and consequences. Students must submit an assignment of no more than 1,500 words. In tutorial during weeks 3 to 4; Final report submission due Friday, Week 4. |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| All - Assessment Task 2:Written Behavioural Profile | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The goal of this assessment task is to allow you to synthesise and apply your knowledge and skills developed through assessment 1 to construct a written case profile report on a selected case study. In your report, you will be required to demonstrate your ability to research, analyse and discuss the key processes undertaken |
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| Product: | Activity Participation | ||||||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | This task will require you to use basic assessment and case formulation skills to write a formal cybercrime behavioural profile report on an assigned case study. You are required to draw on literature to support your methods and formulation |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | |||||||||||||||||||
| All - Assessment Task 3a:Lab Experiment Plan, Design and Execution | |||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The purpose of this assessment task is to plan, develop and test a phishing simulation for a workplace. Students are required to document their planned approached, performance metrics, and anticipated responses. In groups of between four and six students, teams are to perform the simulation on themselves using a course provided software simulation and capture results. |
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| Product: | Practical / Laboratory Skills | ||||||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | |||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | This task will take the form of an in-class experiment where students design their own phishing detection tests and carry these out in their assessment groups (the test audience). Due: weeks 11 and 12. |
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| Criteria: |
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| All - Assessment Task 3b:Report | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Goal: | The purpose of this assessment is to provide an individual report on the undertaking of the phishing experiment and considerations for improving phishing prevention and awareness in the simulated environment (the workplace). |
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| Product: | Report | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Authorship Statement: | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Format: | The Report shall be no more than 3000 words and be targeted at an executive audience interested in building the resilience to phishing-born cyber attacks in the workplace. Suggested report outlines will be covered in class and will include an Executive Summary and any relevant appendices as part of the word count limit |
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| Criteria: |
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| Generic Skills: | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Directed study hours
A 12-unit course will have total of 150 learning hours which will include directed study hours (including online if required), self-directed learning and completion of assessable tasks. Student workload is calculated at 12.5 learning hours per one unit.
What resources do I need to undertake this course?
Please note: Course information, including specific information of recommended readings, learning activities, resources, weekly readings, etc. are available on the course Canvas site– Please log in as soon as possible.
Prescribed text(s) or course reader
You need regular access to the resource(s) below. Many texts are available as ebooks through the Library at no additional cost.
| Required? | Author | Year | Title | Edition | Publisher |
| Required | Kirwan, G. and Power, A | 2013 | Cybercrime: The Psychology of Online Offenders | n/a | Cambridge University Press |
Specific requirements
This is an online course and will require access to a computer and the internet for at least 12 hours per week
How are risks managed in this course?
What administrative information is relevant to this course?
Assessment: Academic Integrity
Academic integrity is the ethical standard of university participation. It ensures that students graduate as a result of proving they are competent in their discipline. This is integral in maintaining the value of academic qualifications. Each industry has expectations and standards of the skills and knowledge within that discipline and these are reflected in assessment.
Academic integrity means that you do not engage in any activity that is considered to be academic fraud; including plagiarism, collusion or outsourcing any part of any assessment item to any other person. You are expected to be honest and ethical by completing all work yourself and indicating in your work which ideas and information were developed by you and which were taken from others. You cannot provide your assessment work to others. You are also expected to provide evidence of wide and critical reading, usually by using appropriate academic references.
In order to minimise incidents of academic fraud, this course may require that some of its assessment tasks, when submitted to Canvas, are electronically checked through Turnitin. This software allows for text comparisons to be made between your submitted assessment item and all other work to which Turnitin has access.
Assessment: Additional Requirements
Eligibility for Supplementary Assessment Your eligibility for supplementary assessment in a course is dependent of the following conditions applying: The final mark is in the percentage range 47% to 49.4% The course is graded using the Standard Grading scale You have not failed an assessment task in the course due to academic misconductAssessment: Submission penalties
Late submission of assessment tasks may be penalised at the following maximum rate: - 5% (of the assessment task's identified value) per day for the first two days from the date identified as the due date for the assessment task. - 10% (of the assessment task's identified value) for the third day - 20% (of the assessment task's identified value) for the fourth day and subsequent days up to and including seven days from the date identified as the due date for the assessment task. - A result of zero is awarded for an assessment task submitted after seven days from the date identified as the due date for the assessment task. Weekdays and weekends are included in the calculation of days late. To request an extension you must contact your course coordinator to negotiate an outcome.Links to relevant University policy and procedures
For more information on Academic Learning & Teaching categories including:
- Assessment: Courses and Coursework Programs
- Review of Assessment and Final Grades
- Supplementary Assessment
- Central Examinations
- Deferred Examinations
- Student Conduct
- Students with a Disability
For more information, visit https://www.usc.edu.au/explore/policies-and-procedures#academic-learning-and-teaching
Student Charter
UniSC is committed to excellence in teaching, research and engagement in an environment that is inclusive, inspiring, safe and respectful. The Student Charter sets out what students can expect from the University, and what in turn is expected of students, to achieve these outcomes.
General Enquiries
- In person:
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- Email:studentcentral@usc.edu.au