I will confidently say that money is the most common motive to commit a cyber crime. They can steal the information and then sell it or hold the information ransom. Money gets a rating of One. The second motive in the ranking goes to Multiple Reasons. This can be a combination of money and political or political and revenge. Multiple Reasons gets a rating of Two. The next on the list is political. We see this from state sponsored hacking groups from Russia, China, and Iran. We also see this motivation from groups like Anonymous. Political gets the rating of Three. Next we have the motive of Recognition. Recognition can be a motivation for somebody that has all of the money in the world and they simply want to be known as the best. Recognition takes the Four rating. Revenge is the next motivator. Revenge can promote actions from people that they never thought possible so it’s entirely possible for someone to commit a cyber crime due to revenge. The hacker can want to simply get back at an old adversary or somebody who made their life more difficult in the past. Paying back an old school bully. Revenge gets the rating of Five. Next is hacking out of Boredom. I would say this is pretty uncommon but it’s not impossible. Having absolutely nothing to do except steal somebody’s credit card information is possible but I think this would be one half of the multiple reasons category. Boredom gets the number Six rating. Last on the list is hacking for entertainment. The hackers would need to be a sociopath to derive pleasure from ruining another person’s life. I think this would also be more common if it was coupled with another motivator like Money. Entertainment gets the last spot at number Seven.
