The use of digital equipment and services is increasing both in organizations and private individuals. This means that more and more people are connecting to the Internet to communicate and share data that may include sensitive information. Due to security developments, unauthorized access to data has become increasingly sophisticated and therefore it has become difficult for cybercriminals to access it. Therefore, cybercriminals have begun to exploit human psychology. There are several different ways cybercriminals use to exploit the social aspect of people. One of these is CEO-fraud which targets specific individuals, often high-profile individuals such as executives and financial controllers. This study has investigated how Swedish municipalities work to reduce the risk of CEO-frauds. Also, the study has mapped out the methods and guidelines used by municipalities to ensure that their employees are not exposed to that type of attack. The study was conducted using a qualitative and quantitative survey that was sent to all 290 municipalities, which resulted in 71 responses. The results show that these municipalities use various technical defences and educate employees. Also, the study shows that these municipalities have policies and guidelines on how phishing and CEO fraud e-mails should be handled. / Användningen av digital utrustning och tjänster ökar både hos organisationer och privatpersoner. Detta innebär att det blir alltfler som kopplar upp sig mot Internet för att kommunicera och dela data som kan innehålla känslig information. Obehörigas åtkomst av data har på grund av säkerhetsutvecklingen blivit allt mer sofistikerad och därför har det blivit svårare för cyberbrottslingar att komma åt den. Därför började cyberbrottslingar utnyttja den mänskliga psykologin. Det finns ett antal olika sätt som cyberbrottslingar använder för att utnyttja den sociala aspekten hos människor. En av dessa är VD-bedrägerier som riktar sig mot bestämda individer, ofta högprofilerade individer såsom chefer och ekonomiansvariga. Denna studie har undersökt hur svenska kommuner arbetar för att minska risken för VD- bedrägeri. Dessutom har studien kartlagt vilka metoder och riktlinjer som kommunerna använder för att säkerställa att deras anställda inte utsätts för den typen av attack. Studien har utförts med hjälp av en kvalitativ och kvantitativ enkätundersökning som skickades ut till samtliga 290 kommuner vilket resulterade i 71 svar. Resultaten visar att de 71 kommuner använder ett antal tekniska skydd samt utbildar anställda. Dessutom visar studien att kommunerna har policy och riktlinjer om hur nätfiske och VD-bedrägerimail skall hanteras.

Unethical behavior includes all decisions and actions counterproductive to an organization's mission and can cause irrevocable damage to the organization's professional reputation. The Securities and Exchange Commission reported 807 ethical violations in 2015. This study was underpinned by the ethical leadership theory, which emphasizes leadership decision making based on fair and just practices, for all involved parties. The purpose of this qualitative multiple-case study was to explore the ethical decision-making best practices that not-for-profit accounting managers in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area needed to strengthen the ethical decision-making process in their organizations. Data were collected through semistructured interviews from 5 participants who were accounting leaders of not-for-profit organizations. The analysis of data involved coding techniques, while member checking ensured confirmability of participant responses. Three themes emerged from the analysis of data as the most effective in fostering an ethical climate within the organizations, notably: the importance of leveraging internal controls, staff education on ethical decision making, and the role of leadership in fostering ethical leadership. The findings from this study may contribute to social change by providing leaders with strategies to reduce the occurrence of fraud within organizations. The beneficiaries of this research may include not-for-profit leaders, accounting professionals, and business practitioners. The goals of these individuals are to aid companies in furthering their missions and ensure organizations remain operational and utilize ethical decision making.

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This study aims to describe President Donald J. Trump’s emergency communication onTwitter in relation to two cases of emergency: The Corona pandemic and the alleged voterfraud in the presidential election of 2020. By applying two different sets of theoreticalperspectives, one ideological and one rationalistic, to the president’s emergencycommunication, the study also aims to find ways to understand what kind of motivation laysbehind the president’s communication. The studies research questions are as follows: 1. Howdoes President Trump communicate on Twitter in relation to the two cases of emergency? 2.How can Trump’s emergency communication be understood from an ideological perspective?3. How can Trump’s emergency communication be understood from a rationalisticperspective?The study is based on an abductive approach but grounded in Rubenstein’s (2015) definitionof the emergency claim and emergency politics. A qualitative content analysis was applied tothe president’s Twitter communication in relation to the two cases of emergency. 10% of thetweets that related to four search terms (covid, coronavirus, voter fraud and election) wasanalyzed to search for patterns of meaning in relationship to the two theoretical perspectives.The study finds that President Trump’s emergency communication can be described asvarying between the cases but ultimately be seen as a consequence of the president’s relationto the emergency. By applying the two theoretical perspectives on the two cases the study alsofinds that the best way to understand President Trump’s emergency communication is asmotivated by rationalism but grounded in arguments that refer to the American version of theconservative ideology.

Purpose In any organization, the Board of Directors acts as the last line of defense against fraud and abuse. Since 2008, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has required nonprofit organizations to publicly disclose any significant asset diversion, defined as theft or unauthorized use of assets, that occurred during the filing year. This research study uses this new disclosure of asset diversion to investigate whether proper board policy oversight and/or governance reduces the likelihood of asset diversion. Understanding how policy and governance impacts a nonprofit organization is critical for managers and practitioners to understand. Organizational management, board members and regulatory agencies (auditors, IRS) all have a responsibility to prevent asset diversion and would benefit from a deeper understanding of where the individual failure points exist from within the organization that create an increased chance of asset diversion. Research Methodology This research study spanned the period between 2014 through 2018 and was comprised of 254 nonprofit organizations. The total sample of organizations that were represented in the IRS data sets consisted of 113,899 separate nonprofit organizations. Organizational data collected from IRS 990 filings across each of the 5 years was first isolated by organizations that experienced asset diversion (n=127) and then matched with an equal number of nonprofit organizations that did not experience asset diversion through random sampling. From the IRS filing data, 18 different variables were then tested against the dependent variable, asset diversion, using logistic binary regression analysis. Findings The findings of this study both reaffirmed certain key aspects of asset diversion in nonprofit organizations as well as introduced new key variables that showed significant correlation with an increase in asset diversion. The findings suggest that there are variables from both board policy oversight and board governance regression analysis that show a significant relationship with asset diversion. More specifically, there were three common variables that showed significance throughout each test: organizational required audit, independent auditors, and improper party transaction with family members of current or former directors and/or officers of the organization. One additional variable, improper party transaction with an entity owned or operated by a current or former officer and/or director, showed significance in four of the five models tested, indicating that there is a strong correlation with increasing asset diversion. Keywords: fraud, asset diversion, nonprofit, binary regression, Board of Directors, IRS 990 filing / Business Administration/Strategic Management

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The aim of explainable machine learning is to aid humans in understanding how exactly complex machine learning models work. Machine learning models have offered great performance in various areas. However, the mechanisms behind how the model works and how decisions are being made remain unknown. This specific constraint increases the user’s hesitation to trust the results of the model and even to improve their performance further. Counterfactual explanation is one method to offer explainability in machine learning by indicating what would have happened if the input of a model was modified in a specific way. Fraud is the action of acquiring something from someone else in a dishonest manner. Companies’ and organizations’ vulnerability to malicious actions has been increasing due to the development of digitalization. Machine learning applications have been successfully put in place to tackle fraudulent actions. However, the severity of the impact of fraudulent actions has highlighted the need for further scientific exploration of the topic. The current research will attempt to do so by studying counterfactual explanations related to fraud detection. Latent-CF is a method for counterfactual generation that utilizes an autoencoder and gradient descent in its latent space. LatentCF++ is an extension of Latent-CF. It utilizes a classifier and an autoencoder. The aim is to perturb the encoded latent representation through a gradient descent optimization for counterfactual generation so that the initially undesired class is then classified with the desired prediction. Compared to Latent-CF, LatentCF++ uses Adam optimization and adds further constraints to ensure that the generated counterfactual’s class probability surpasses the set decision boundary. The research question the current thesis addresses is: “To what extent can LatentCF++ provide reliable counterfactual explanations in fraud detection?”. In order to provide an answer to this question, the study is applying an experiment to implement a new application of LatentCF++. The current experiment utilizes a onedimensional convolutional neural network as a classifier and a deep autoencoder for counterfactual generation in fraud data. This study reports satisfying results regarding counterfactual explanation production of LatentCF++ on fraud detection. The classification is quite accurate, while the reconstruction loss of the deep autoencoder employed is very low. The validity of the counterfactual examples produced is lower than the original study while the proximity is lower. Compared to baseline models, k-nearest neighbors outperform LatentCF++ in terms of validity and Feature Gradient Descent in terms of proximity.

I Sverige förekommer diskussioner om valfusk på sociala medier. Vid valet 2018 låg Valmyndighetens hemsida nere efter en överbelastningsattack, och fyra år senare sprids fortfarande teorier om att Valmyndigheten själva stängt ner sin hemsida för att påverka valresultatet (SvD, 2022). Twitter är en plattform där diskussioner om valfusk sker och där svensk politik diskuteras, det råder en oerhörd polarisering på plattformen kring detta ämne. I denna uppsats har vi med hjälp av en explorativ kartläggning undersökt hur förtroendet till demokratin möjligtvis kan urholkas genom att titta på förekomsten av narrativ om valfusk på Twitter, vår forskningsfråga lyder "hur och i vilken omfattning pratar man om valfusk innan, under och efter det svenska valet 2022". Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ innehållsanalys för att analysera data från Twitter som handlar om valfusk under tidsperioden 1/8-22 fram till och med den 9/10-22. Vi har delat upp datasetet i tre delar, en period innan valet, en period som sträcker sig under valveckan samt en period som är tiden efter valet fram till den 9/10-22. Vi har kombinerat den kvalitativa innehållsanalysen med en kvantitativ innehållsanalys. Där vi genom deskriptiv statistik visar på förekomsten av de olika kategorierna vi tagit fram i materialet för att på så sätt identifiera i vilken utsträckning olika narrativ om valfusk förekommer i diskussioner om svenska valet 2022 på Twitter. Vårt resultat visar att tweetsen kring valfusk skiljer sig åt beroende på vilken period under valet som undersökts. I perioden innan valet var tweets som relaterar till att valfusk sker 66,5 procent av av det analyserade materialet. Dessa siffror skiftade i perioden under valet där motstånd mot narrativ om valfusk växte och utgjorde nästan lika stor andel som de som ansåg att valfusk sker (31 respektive 40,6 procent). Efter valet identifierade vi en ny kategori av tweets som var den näst största under den perioden (30,5 procent), efter de som anser att valfusk sker i svenska val. Det var de som ansåg att tweets om valfusk hade ökat om oppositionen ej vunnit riksdagsvalet, och att det istället blivit väldigt tyst från de individer som tidigare varit högljudda om att valfusk sker i svenska val. Diskussionen om valfusk är polariserad, där det är två ytterligheter som tampas mot varandra. 50 procent av det totala antalet inlägg som analyserats handlar om att valfusk pågår eller förväntas ske i svenska val, bland dessa inlägg riktas misstro till den svenska demokratin och det svenska valsystemet. Det uttrycks ett stort missnöje och hat mot de s.k "uråldriga" statliga medieinstitutionerna som anklagas för att vara en propagandamaskin för vänsterblockets räkning. Socialdemokraterna är det parti som överlägset mest anklagas för valfusk i debatten, 94,5 procent av alla inlägg som är riktade mot ett parti är riktade mot Socialdemokraterna. De anklagas för långvarig korruption, valfusk i tidigare val, där argumentet om att Socialdemokraterna är det enda partiet som blivit dömda för valfusk i domstol är vanligt förekommande. Huruvida narrativet om valfusk förändras för de olika tidsperioderna så visar resultatet att det är en större andel inlägg som påstår att valfusk sker i Sverige innan valet jämfört med under och efter valet. I datasetet efter valet handlar istället mycket kring diskussionen om valfusk om hur valresultatet hade gått åt andra hållet så hade det varit ett gigantiskt rop om valfusk från främst Sverigedemokrater / In Sweden, there are discussions about election fraud. At the 2018 election, the Swedish Election Authority's website was down after an overload attack, and four years later, theories and discussions are still spreading that the Swedish Election Authority itself shut down its website in order to influence the election results (SvD, 2022). Twitter is a platform where discussions about election fraud take place and where Swedish politics is discussed, there is an enormous polarization on the platform around this topic. In this essay, with the help of an exploratory survey, we have investigated how trust in democracy can possibly be eroded by looking at the prevalence of the spread of narratives about election fraud on Twitter, our research question is "how and to what extent do you talk about election fraud before, during and after the Swedish election in 2022". We have used a qualitative content analysis to analyze data from Twitter dealing with election fraud during the time period 1/8-22 up to and including 9/10-22. We have divided the data set into three parts, a period before the election, a period that extends during the election week and a period that is the time after the election until 9/10-22. We have combined the content of the qualitative analysis with a quantitative content analysis. Where we use descriptive statistics to show the existence of the different categories we developed in the material in order to identify the extent to which different narratives about electoral fraud appear in discussions about the Swedish 2022 election on Twitter. Our results show that the tweets about electoral fraud differ depending on which period during the election was examined. In the period before the election, tweets relating to election fraud were 66.5 percent of the analyzed material. These numbers shifted in the period during the election where opposition to the narrative of electoral fraud grew and constituted almost as large a proportion as those who believed that electoral fraud was taking place (31 and 40.6 percent, respectively). After the election, we identified a new category of tweets that was the second largest during that period (30.5 percent), after those who believe that electoral fraud occurs in Swedish elections. They were the ones who believed that tweets about electoral fraud would have increased if the opposition had not won the parliamentary election, instead the individuals who had previously been vocal about electoral fraud went silent. The discussion about electoral fraud is polarized, where two extremes are pitted against each other. 50 percent of the total number of posts analyzed are about electoral fraud taking place or expected to take place in Swedish elections, among these posts, a huge amount of mistrust of Swedish democracy and the Swedish electoral system is identified. There is great dissatisfaction and hatred expressed towards the so-called "ancient" state media institutions which are accused of being a propaganda machine on behalf of the left side. The Social Democrats are by far the party most accused of electoral fraud in the debate, 94.5 percent of all posts directed at any party are directed at the Social Democrats. They are accused of long-term corruption, electoral fraud in previous elections, where the argument that the Social Democrats are the only party that has been convicted of electoral fraud in court is common. Whether the narrative about election fraud changes for the different time periods, the results show that there is a greater proportion of posts that claim that election fraud takes place in Sweden before the election compared to during and after the election. In the data set after the election, instead, much of the discussion about election fraud is about how the election results had gone the other way, so there would have been a gigantic outcry about election fraud from mainly the Sweden Democrats.

It has become possible to say that the metaverse is a great opportunity for investment and trade, as it provides massive financial returns. The metaverse is the next evolution in social connection and the successor to the mobile internet. Non-fungible tokens represent the ownership of unique items in the metaverse and allow the creator to tokenize things like art, real estate, and collectibles. Trading NFT in the metaverse faces challenges, including security, fraud, and scams. Those challenges have negatively affected the stability of this market. “How can NFT trading in metaverse be improved?” is the main question of this thesis to overcome the challenges. The author performed a systematic literature review to survey and explore the possibility of using technologies to reach the ideal use of NFT in the metaverse. The systematic literature review will guide the researcher to gain more information to evaluate it in the research area. Furthermore, Pointing and identifying the gaps and knowledge needed between the research elements. Three main challenges are presented (identity verification, fraud, and ownership) in areas in which technologies that can provide (flexibility, reliability, accuracy, and performance) can apply. Three dominant solutions, smart contracts, oracle nodes, and blockchain are the study and analysis results to realize the research question and identified problem. The elected technologies show an ability to address challenges in different ways and thus maintain the security and effectiveness of trading operations. Also, the result section mentions other solutions not counting on the dominant solutions. Open issues which provide a ground for future research with practical implementations are also discussed.

In 1995 Congress passed the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act to address several perceived abuses in securities fraud class actions. In the aftermath of Enron, WorldCom, and other high profile securities litigation, critics suggest that the law made it easier for firms to escape securities fraud liability and thus created a climate conducive to fraud. Proponents maintain that the PSLRA has deterred the filing of nonmeritorious cases. This article explores whether the PSLRA achieved Congress's twin goals of "curb[ing] frivolous, lawyer-driven litigation, while preserving investors' ability to recover meritorious claims." The empirical evidence suggests that, in many respects, the PSLRA did achieve several of Congress' goals. There has been a reduction in the number of securities class actions filed. The PSLRA has improved overall case quality, particularly in the circuit with most stringent interpretation of the heightened pleading standard. In general, Congress seems to have achieved its goal of reducing the race to the court by increasing the filing delay in securities class actions. However, a stricter interpretation of the pleading standard does not affect this. The PSLRA does little to reduce the incidence of litigation for high technology issuers, but the evidence suggests that the litigation risk has substantially decreased for these issuers. Overall, the monitoring of attorney's effort increased, but institutional investors are no better at monitoring than other lead plaintiffs. The findings also suggest that lead plaintiffs forcing plaintiff's attorneys to compete for designation as lead counsel has resulted in lower attorney's fees. The observed effect is greater when the lead plaintiff is an institutional investor.