Pros and Cons of Legal Career Tracks

Most students who go into law school have a good idea what they want to do. But that's not always the career path they end up on. There are pros and cons with all of them and a good attorney considers all options before moving forward.  

Defense Attorney - This is an exciting career path that is both romanticized and demonized. Defending those accused of crimes is an essential function of guarding individual Constitutional rights. Depending on the kinds of cases you take, this occupation can be very satisfying and lucrative. But the work isn't always glamorous. A DUI lawyer in Utah, for instance, takes on many of the most undesireable cases without the arousing courtroom scenes people often see on TV.

Public Prosecutor - These are the people who get to send criminals to prison. This can be a very satisfying career for those who go into law wanting to confront crime and corruption. As a public servant your choices on the job and off, your politics and personal life will be highly scrutinized. It can be a high profile career and allow you to affect big change if you can endure the spotlight well. 

Civil Law - Representing parties in civil cases can also be very exciting and lucrative. You can settle down anywhere as a civil attorney whereas other careers may require you to practice in certain cities. However, civil law is often a saturated field in many markets. Still, a skilled personal injury lawyer from Arlington, TX, can gain notoriety by practicing ethically and consistently winning cases. 

Family Law - This career path isn't the most lucrative option, but it gives great satisfaction to those who practice. Case work allows you to provide help for troubled teenagers and children you represent and their families. You can also work to affect how family law is written. Be aware that with the satisfaction of helping kids, this can also be an emotionally stressful career.  

Business Law - This is a great track for people who have a head for business and love fast moving environments and high profile cases. You may be part of a firm that specializes in business to business law or you might work as in-house counsel for a large corporation. The pay is good and the lifestyle is exciting, but you may go days at a time without ever seeing the light of day and weeks without being home in time for dinner. Of course there are other career paths including non-litigation oriented options and you can change jobs at any time during your career. The best way to learn about a career path that looks interesting to you is to talk to someone who practices it.

Hackers and Their Methods of Operendi Don't Always Give Them Away

Often hacker groups methods to pin the crime on someone else. So, let's say you have 160 known hacking groups world-wide, most are loosely affiliated. Plus, you have government and foreign military or cyber-spy commands perhaps adding another 50 or so to the mix, some quite sophisticated. Not long ago, I was reading 150 page research report on cyber security, cyber warfare, hactivists, and criminal hackers. Okay so let's talk for second shall we?

One of the chapters in the report suggested that it was easy to tell if a hacking group was part of a state-sponsored cyber command, or just would-be hackers messing around because you could tell by their style and methods. However, I would question this because cyber commands would be wise to cloak as hactivists, or petty hacker teenagers when trying to break into a system of a Corporation, or government agency. Meanwhile the report proposes that the hackers aren't that smart, and that they always use the same methods of operandi, I completely disagree with this.

There may be some that do, but I bet most of them have many tricks up their sleeve, and they may even purposely mimic the methodologies and tactics of other hacking groups to shield and hide their own identities - in other words, mix it up a little so they don't get caught. Wouldn't they, or are we to believe and think hackers are stupid or something? They aren't, they're obviously smart enough to break into nearly every single computer system on the planet, they have been busy breaking into everything in the last few years, these aren't stupid individuals - in fact, I wonder if anything is safe of sacred anymore?

The Risks of Cybercrime

Whenever you think of the darker side of society-better yet-if someone asked you to list all of the bad in this world-a multitude of things probably come to mind. You think of the horrors of society that you are used to seeing reported on the news: the serial killings, the thefts, and instances of grand theft auto, burglary, drug-related deaths- all elements of sensational news and all things that you would probably never wish to encounter personally. You might also include underground markets and escorts under the category of the darker half of society. Even with those aspects of criminal activity, the fear appeal isn't as poignant or palpable as it probably should be, and for good reason. We are conditioned to think that someone outside of ourselves is responsible for our security, that we dwell in a relatively safe country, governed by laws that are designed to punish evil and reward good. You probably were not mugged by someone on your leisure walk downtown to one of your favorite spots to eat. Your car more than likely was not broken into today. Chances are you were not pickpocketed or followed. We are trained and accustomed to believe that the world we live in is full of inherently good people, and so the notion of "it could never happen to me" is so strongly embedded into our minds that we often discount the seriousness of the threats to our security that are out there. It's not until disaster strikes and loss takes its toll that we become the spokesperson against the wrongdoings that constantly plague society.

Yet, there's a new, gloomier side to society that people will, 9 times out of 10, overlook-one that poses the same if not a greater level of threat to the things and the people we consider important to safe keep-cybercrime. The term in and of itself is not immediately intimidating, but that is at least part of the reason it costs an estimated $388 billion per year to reprimand. Again, this false concept of immunity-"it won't happen to me"-deters us from paying attention, and is continually reinforced mentally, simply because the days you go unscathed by this darker half of society grossly outnumber those that you do. Much like drug trafficking, cybercrime is nearly impossible to suppress, and while chances are that you'll go a life time without ever having your car stolen or being held at gun point, your computer and the network that you willingly surrender so much of your information and invest so much of your time and reliance on, is being attacked every second of every day, from countless directions. Unlike the physical crime we can identify with and understand, the risks of cybercrime are so abstract and farfetched to us.

Financial Malware

Cybercrime is, more often than not, a business, and just like any other business, cyber criminals are out to make money, even if it is your money. It's no secret that financial malware is one of the most popular tactics of hackers. Nothing is more frustrating than fraudulent banking activity. If you have never been a victim of fraud, try to imagine your hard-earned money vanishing furiously from your account, unknowingly. The first thought upon discovery is denial: you start second guessing whether the transactions are yours, that is, until you see the location, which is probably from another state or country. The next thought is "How?" You are staring at your debit card in your hand, you have never misplaced your online banking login information, never given out your debit card number, and have always made sure to check that your website browser was secure (i.e. https) prior to an online transaction. Next comes the onslaught of excuses and the dreaded phone call to one of your banking representatives to explain that your money is gone, but you haven't spent it. And if you're one for immediate gratification, fraudulent banking will be a major headache, to say the least: you will have to volunteer to actively participate in the investigation, file reports, and answer questions before they can even begin the process of refunding your money. You've played out every possible scenario in your head where you could have been vulnerable, but there's a plausible explanation you probably did not muse over: financial malware.

Financial malware is one of the worst categories out there. The amount of the attacks targeting the financial sector is growing irrepressibly. It seems logical that hackers would target major financial institutions; however, the bulk of malware aimed at the finance sector is en route for its customers, the obvious reason being that the average end user's system is probably less secure than the systems utilized by financial institutions. Here's some insight into how financial malware works, so that you can be on the lookout and alter your habits to prevent being the next victim: