Cybercrime And Its Victims

The last twenty years have seen an explosion in the development of information technology, to the point that people spend a major portion of waking life in online spaces. While there are enormous benefits associated with this technology, there are also risks that can affect the most vulnerable in our society but also the most confident. Cybercrime and its victims explores the social construction of violence and victimisation in online spaces and brings together scholars from many areas of inquiry, including criminology, sociology, and cultural, media, and gender studies. The book is organised thematically into five parts. Part one addresses some broad conceptual and theoretical issues. Part two is concerned with issues relating to sexual violence, abuse, and exploitation, as well as to sexual expression online. Part three addresses issues related to race and culture. Part four addresses concerns around cyberbullying and online suicide, grouped together as ‘social violence’. The final part argues that victims of cybercrime are, in general, neglected and not receiving the recognition and support they need and deserve. It concludes that in the volatile and complex world of cyberspace continued awareness-raising is essential for bringing attention to the plight of victims. It also argues that there needs to be more support of all kinds for victims, as well as an increase in the exposure and punishment of perpetrators. Drawing on a range of pressing contemporary issues such as online grooming, sexting, cyber-hate, cyber-bulling and online radicalization, this book examines how cyberspace makes us more vulnerable to crime and violence, how it gives rise to new forms of surveillance and social control and how cybercrime can be prevented.

Cybercrimes are often viewed as technical offenses that require technical solutions, such as antivirus programs or automated intrusion detection tools. However, these crimes are committed by individuals or networks of people which prey upon human victims and are detected and prosecuted by criminal justice personnel. As a result, human decision-making plays a substantial role in the course of an offence, the justice response, and policymakers' attempts to legislate against these crimes. This book focuses on the human factor in cybercrime: its offenders, victims, and parties involved in tackling cybercrime. The distinct nature of cybercrime has consequences for the entire spectrum of crime and raises myriad questions about the nature of offending and victimization. For example, are cybercriminals the same as traditional offenders, or are there new offender types with distinct characteristics and motives? What foreground and situational characteristics influence the decision-making process of offenders? Which personal and situational characteristics provide an increased or decreased risk of cybercrime victimization? This book brings together leading criminologists from around the world to consider these questions and examine all facets of victimization, offending, offender networks, and policy responses. Chapter 13 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

This book is about the human factor in cybercrime: its offenders, victims and parties involved in tackling cybercrime. It takes a diverse international perspective of the response to and prevention of cybercrime by seeking to understand not just the technological, but the human decision-making involved. This edited volume represents the state of the art of research on the human factor in cybercrime, addressing its victims, offenders, and policing. It originated at the Second annual Conference on the Human Factor in Cybercrime, held in The Netherlands in October 2019, bringing together empirical research from a variety of disciplines, and theoretical and methodological approaches. This volume will be of particular interest to researchers and students in cybercrime and the psychology of cybercrime, as well as policy makers and law enforcement interested in prevention and detection.

Crime is undergoing a metamorphosis. The online technological revolution has created new opportunities for a wide variety of crimes which can be perpetrated on an industrial scale, and crimes traditionally committed in an offline environment are increasingly being transitioned to an online environment. This book takes a case study-based approach to exploring the types, perpetrators and victims of cyber frauds. Topics covered include: An in-depth breakdown of the most common types of cyber fraud and scams. The victim selection techniques and perpetration strategies of fraudsters. An exploration of the impact of fraud upon victims and best practice examples of support systems for victims. Current approaches for policing, punishing and preventing cyber frauds and scams. This book argues for a greater need to understand and respond to cyber fraud and scams in a more effective and victim-centred manner. It explores the victim-blaming discourse, before moving on to examine the structures of support in place to assist victims, noting some of the interesting initiatives from around the world and the emerging strategies to counter this problem. This book is essential reading for students and researchers engaged in cyber crime, victimology and international fraud.

Cyber Victimology provides a global socio-legal-victimological perspective on victimisation online, written in clear, non-technical terms, and presents practical solutions for the problem. Halder qualitatively analyzes the contemporary dimensions of cyber-crime victimisation, aiming to fill the gap in the existing literature on this topic. A literature review, along with case studies, allows the author to analyze the current situation concerning cyber-crime victimisation. A profile of victims of cyber-crime has been developed based on the characteristics of different groups of victims. As well, new policy guidelines on the basis of UN documents on cybercrimes and victim justice are proposed to prevent such victimisation and to explore avenues for restitution of justice for cases of cyber-crime victimisation. This book shows how the effects of cyber victimisation in one sector can affect others. This book also examines why perpetrators choose to attack their victim/s in specific ways, which then have a ripple effect, creating greater harm to other members of society in unexpected ways. This book is suitable for use as a textbook in cyber victimology courses and will also be of great interest to policy makers and activists working in this area.

Cyber Crimes against Women in India reveals loopholes in the present laws and policies of the Indian judicial system, and what can be done to ensure safety in cyberspace. The book is a significant contribution to socio-legal research on online crimes targeting teenage girls and women. It shows how they become soft targets of trolling, online grooming, privacy infringement, bullying, pornography, sexual defamation, morphing, spoofing and so on. The authors address various raging debates in the country such as how women can be protected from cybercrimes; what steps can be taken as prevention and as recourse to legal aid and how useful and accessible cyber laws are. The book provides detailed answers to a wide array of questions that bother scholars and charts a way forward.

Jonathan Lusthaus lifts the veil on cybercriminals in the most extensive account yet of the lives they lead and the vast international industry they have created. Having traveled to hotspots around the world to meet with hundreds of law enforcement agents, security gurus, hackers, and criminals, he charts how this industry based on anonymity works.

Crime is undergoing a metamorphosis. The online technological revolution has created new opportunities for a wide variety of crimes which can be perpetrated on an industrial scale, and crimes traditionally committed in an offline environment are increasingly being transitioned to an online environment. This book takes a case study-based approach to exploring the types, perpetrators and victims of cyber frauds. Topics covered include: An in-depth breakdown of the most common types of cyber fraud and scams. The victim selection techniques and perpetration strategies of fraudsters. An exploration of the impact of fraud upon victims and best practice examples of support systems for victims. Current approaches for policing, punishing and preventing cyber frauds and scams. This book argues for a greater need to understand and respond to cyber fraud and scams in a more effective and victim-centred manner. It explores the victim-blaming discourse, before moving on to examine the structures of support in place to assist victims, noting some of the interesting initiatives from around the world and the emerging strategies to counter this problem. This book is essential reading for students and researchers engaged in cyber crime, victimology and international fraud.