Educating Accounting Students On Computer Crime And Ethics

Abstract

<p class="MsoBodyText2" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Accounting fraud has been prevalent in the popular press for the past several years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The accounting profession has begun to stress the importance of ethics because of this negative press.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Some state boards of accountancy have begun requiring ethics courses as part of continuing education to maintain certification and licensing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Many accounting frauds are in the form of computer crime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Accounting students must be made aware of various types of frauds, including computer crimes, how frauds are prevented and detected, and why ethics are important in the accounting profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This paper describes several categories of computer crimes and technological means of preventing and detecting these crimes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Computer crimes and prevention and detection means are as varied as the perpetrators who commit these crimes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Finally, this paper suggests using a combination of three courses to educate accounting students on computer crime and ethics for preparation for their accounting careers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>These three courses are a traditional Accounting Information Systems (AIS) course, a fraud prevention and detection or forensic accounting course, and an accounting or business ethics course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>These three courses, used in concert, will provide accounting students with the tools they need when they are faced with incidents of fraud or ethics decisions during their accounting careers.</span></span></span></p>