Educating Accounting Students On Computer Crime And Ethics

Abstract

Accounting fraud has been prevalent in the popular press for the past several years.  The accounting profession has begun to stress the importance of ethics because of this negative press.  Some state boards of accountancy have begun requiring ethics courses as part of continuing education to maintain certification and licensing.  Many accounting frauds are in the form of computer crime.  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.  This paper describes several categories of computer crimes and technological means of preventing and detecting these crimes.  Computer crimes and prevention and detection means are as varied as the perpetrators who commit these crimes.  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.  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.  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.