Threat Actors And Their Motives

Question 1

Deference between deliberate and malicious?

Answer 1

Malicious acts are always deliberate but deliberate acts are not always malicious.

Deliberate act - thalidomide - honest intentions with poor outcomes; or a product that’s recipe is changed but the harmless additive causes issues

Question 2

Why study malicious contamination?

Answer 2

potential for large scale issues

research can help prevention or aid investigation

motivations translate well to other criminal behaviour

Question 3

Define malicious contamination

Answer 3

Two forms:

poisoning of an individual
product tampering

Covers a range of crimes with different fundamental motives

Question 4

What are the 3 facets for malicious contamination?

Answer 4

Kilbane and Wilson 2019

Specificity
Motive
Form of action

Question 5

what is a typology?

Answer 5

a general classification type - eg personality types

Question 5

what is a typology?

Answer 5

a general classification type - eg personality types

Question 6

Kilbane and Wilson 2019 - define specificity

Answer 6

this is who was targeted

number of potential victims

need to compare intention vs actual outcome ie - only one person targeted in a workplace, but multiple people were affected

High specify is about targeting a single person, low could be just random victims, its a scale more than a dichotomy as groups of increasing size could be targeted ie persons, couple, family, workplace, consumer of a product…

Question 7

Kilbane and Wilson 2019 define motive

Answer 7

range from personal to political

but difficult to distinguish as politically motivated might have an element of personal motivation ie revenge for a policy harming the attackers family etc.

Question 8

Kilbane and Wilson 2019 define form of action

Answer 8

expressive vs instrumental

expressive more emotionally driven
instrumental about achieving a goal

Question 9

Kilbane and Wilson 2019 what are the facet combinations?

Answer 9

• A ( specificity ) = 1 ℎ𝑖𝑔ℎ 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦 2 𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑡𝑦
• B ( cause ) = 1 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 2 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙
• C ( violence ) = 1 (𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙) 2 (𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑒)

Question 10

Kilbane and Wilson 2019 Facet outcomes?

Answer 10

8 groups

Question 11

3 features of an assassination

Answer 11

intentionality
targeting
victim is a prominent person

Question 12

Assassination - define intentionality

Answer 12

The aim of the murderer is to kill a specific target, any associated murders (bystanders, bodyguards) are considered murder victims, not assassination victims

Some scholars state that the intention must not be over a personal matter like a love interest

Question 13

Assassination - define targeted

Answer 13

there needs to be intentional planning to kill the specific individual, this could be years down to minutes, but a random act of say shooting into a crowd is not deemed assassination.

Question 14

Assassination define a prominent person

Answer 14

killing a neighbour over a grievance is a murder, not an assassination, the perosn must have some form of public prominence

Question 15

4 characteristics associated with those who carry out an assassination

Answer 15

• Mental disorder.
• Fixated.
• Terrorist actors.
• State actors.