Lecturer: Alana Marushat (2015)

What is the course about?

JURD7330 is about how cybercrime fits into larger political, legal and economic frameworks.  Students learn about cybercrime from an interdisciplinary lens in topics such as ethical hacking, systemic cyber attacks, online fraud and scams, preventing and disrupting child sex abuse materials, the dark net, approaches to online infringement and so forth.  This course is taught from a practical perspective.  I have, for example, forensics experts, and people who do private investigation into cyber offenses who give guest lectures.  

Why does the subject interest you?

The course is really fun to teach because the topics are so "now", or as one of my colleagues say: "aghhh, you teach a sexy law topic."  I specialise in cybersecurity and teach in criminology, law, economics, information systems and in defence colleges in multiple countries.  

Do you have any advice for students who are interested in the course?

I love teaching and research in this area and am confident that my passion for the area is well received by the students.  So if you want to know what your mobile phone is actually doing when you press a button, as opposed to what it says it is doing, learn how to track people, do basic forensics, learn how to interrogate digital forensics, learn the inside position of a $200 million online security's fraud syndicate being taken down and more than all, contribute to interesting projects in the field, then you should take the course.  If you're looking for an easy grade, this one is not for you.