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Stats reveal an increasing rate of cybercrimes. Data breaches cost businesses an average of $4.35 million in 2022. This qualitative research explores the realm of cybercrime, focusing on adult perceptions and the underlying factors that might motivate engagement in online activities considered illegal or criminal.Objectives:The primary aim of the study is to explore how individuals conceptualize online crimes and rationalize their involvement in such activities, including illegal downloads and online bullying. Understanding these perceptions is crucial for addressing the broader implications of cybercrime in society.Methodology:The study gathered insights through panel discussions involving master's students from diverse international backgrounds at the University of Tehran. Thematic analysis was employed to dissect and understand the opinions and justifications offered by the participants regarding their views on cybercrime.Results:Findings from the discussions reveal a complex tapestry of attitudes towards cybercrime, encompassing various justifications and rationalizations for participation in illegal online activities. These perspectives provide a nuanced understanding of how cybercrimes are perceived by individuals.Conclusion:The research contributes significantly to our comprehension of individual attitudes towards cybercrimes. The insights gained are invaluable for the development of targeted educational programs, interventions, and legal frameworks aimed at effectively mitigating and addressing the challenges posed by cybercrime.

Victims of online fraud face a high level of blame from their families, friends, professionals, the broader community and often from themselves. Victims are commonly perceived as stupid, gullible and undeserving of justice. The reasons for this are under-researched, and there are currently no satisfactory explanations of why victim-blaming occurs so frequently in cases of online fraud. This article proposes a potential theoretical explanation for the high level of blame experienced by online fraud victims. Lerner’s Belief in a Just World theory is posited as a helpful theoretical explanation for the high level of blame directed toward victims of online fraud. This article argues that Lerner’s Belief in a Just World theory is a helpful framework for understanding the blame faced by victims of online fraud because it posits that: behavioural responsibility (a trait commonly ascribed to online fraud victims) is central to perceived blameworthiness; and that compensation for a crime determines the level of blame directed toward victims. As victims of online fraud are exceptionally unlikely to receive any type of compensation (whether monetary or otherwise), BJW may help explain the blame directed toward victims. Prior scholarship predominantly understands the blame faced by online fraud victims through the lens of Nils Christie’s (1986) ‘ideal victim’ thesis. This article presents an advance over this existing understanding by illustrating how BJW provides a more detailed explanation for victim blame in online fraud.

The extraordinary current craze around NFTs reflects their perceived value as a technological development that can bring greater certainty to questions of ownership and authenticity in fields like art and other collectibles. This is, among other things, the promise of crime prevention through technology, as ownership and authenticity are in the art world closely tied to criminal legal matters like theft, handling stolen goods and fraud. The crime prevention promise looks to fall flat though, as the technology seems to be less capable of delivering these benefits than has been assumed by its promoters. Much of the attraction of NFTs is therefore not actually based on effective crime prevention, but rather on hype. This paper explores the hype, and its relationship to the crime prevention promise of NFTs, through the lens of ‘the social lives of things’. We argue that as well as social lives, things have criminal lives. Analysis sensitive to the criminal lives of things finds an NFT trading scene heated by emotion: excitement, attraction, temptation, speculative euphoria and acquisitive, possessive sentiment. This creates a sense of object agency more active than the cold traditional vision of material structure presented in standard criminological treatments of things-in-the-world as passive opportunity structures. The hyped NFT market trades in affecting objects that create crime in emotional as well as structural ways. We therefore arrive at a conclusion opposite to starting assumptions: far from preventing crime, NFTs are making it.

The extraordinary current craze around NFTs reflects their perceived value as a technological development that can bring greater certainty to questions of ownership and authenticity in fields like art and other collectibles. This is, among other things, the promise of crime prevention through technology, as ownership and authenticity are in the art world closely tied to criminal legal matters like theft, handling stolen goods and fraud. The crime prevention promise looks to fall flat though, as the technology seems to be less capable of delivering these benefits than has been assumed by its promoters. Much of the attraction of NFTs is therefore not actually based on effective crime prevention, but rather on hype. This paper explores the hype, and its relationship to the crime prevention promise of NFTs, through the lens of ‘the social lives of things’. We argue that as well as social lives, things have criminal lives. Analysis sensitive to the criminal lives of things finds an NFT trading scene heated by emotion: excitement, attraction, temptation, speculative euphoria and acquisitive, possessive sentiment. This creates a sense of object agency more active than the cold traditional vision of material structure presented in standard criminological treatments of things-in-the-world as passive opportunity structures. The hyped NFT market trades in affecting objects that create crime in emotional as well as structural ways. We therefore arrive at a conclusion opposite to starting assumptions: far from preventing crime, NFTs are making it.

Compared to the offline world, the online environment is more anonymous and therefore less easily controlled. Criminological theories generally show that people are more likely to commit crime when they experience or perceive less formal or informal social control. Consequently, one might assume that people are more likely to commit crime online than offline. As formal social control is lacking, informal social control and peer-offending may be important predictors of online offending. In this paper, we examine to what extent differences in perceived formal and informal online control are related to the likelihood that a person will commit a system-trespassing offense (i.e. malicious hacking). Additionally, we examine peer system-trespassing, and how this may interact with perceptions of formal and informal social control. In the logistic regression analyses we employ eight different measures for perceptions of formal and informal social control, in addition to peer-offending, and control variables. Both direct effects and interaction effects are examined. Our results show that peer-offending is an important predictor of system-trespassing and interaction effects show that perceived formal and informal online social control are related to this type of offending but only for specific groups. Implications will be discussed.

Compared to the offline world, the online environment is more anonymous and therefore less easily controlled. Criminological theories generally show that people are more likely to commit crime when they experience or perceive less formal or informal social control. Consequently, one might assume that people are more likely to commit crime online than offline. As formal social control is lacking, informal social control and peer-offending may be important predictors of online offending. In this paper, we examine to what extent differences in perceived formal and informal online control are related to the likelihood that a person will commit a system-trespassing offense (i.e. malicious hacking). Additionally, we examine peer system-trespassing, and how this may interact with perceptions of formal and informal social control. In the logistic regression analyses we employ eight different measures for perceptions of formal and informal social control, in addition to peer-offending, and control variables. Both direct effects and interaction effects are examined. Our results show that peer-offending is an important predictor of system-trespassing and interaction effects show that perceived formal and informal online social control are related to this type of offending but only for specific groups. Implications will be discussed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate young adults knowledge and awareness of online crime, and also to examine their attitudes towards the legislation in the area. We also find it interesting to investigate if young adults are worried to become victims of online crime, and if this affects their internet usage. This, because there are risks of entering personal data online. What makes people extra vulnerable to this type of crime is that online risks are more complex and may be more difficult to predict than risks in the physical world. The theory chosen in this essay is Ulrich Beck’s risk society in which he brings up different types of risks that can affect its citizens. This theory will be applied to online crime and occurring risks in our high-technological society. Finally, the results in this study have shown that young adult awareness is high, but that the knowledge was relatively low regarding how to protect themselves from online crime and risks. The knowledge was also relatively low on how to protect themselves from becoming victims of online crime. Also, the knowledge of current legislation regarding online crime was also relatively low. Unfortunately, the risks on the internet are greater than some may believe, especially when criminals can be anonymous and data breaches occur without major signs on the victim's computer. The law and social norms should therefore work together to internalize a generally accepted behavior online.

The purpose of this study is to investigate young adults knowledge and awareness of online crime, and also to examine their attitudes towards the legislation in the area. We also find it interesting to investigate if young adults are worried to become victims of online crime, and if this affects their internet usage. This, because there are risks of entering personal data online. What makes people extra vulnerable to this type of crime is that online risks are more complex and may be more difficult to predict than risks in the physical world. The theory chosen in this essay is Ulrich Beck’s risk society in which he brings up different types of risks that can affect its citizens. This theory will be applied to online crime and occurring risks in our high-technological society. Finally, the results in this study have shown that young adult awareness is high, but that the knowledge was relatively low regarding how to protect themselves from online crime and risks. The knowledge was also relatively low on how to protect themselves from becoming victims of online crime. Also, the knowledge of current legislation regarding online crime was also relatively low. Unfortunately, the risks on the internet are greater than some may believe, especially when criminals can be anonymous and data breaches occur without major signs on the victim's computer. The law and social norms should therefore work together to internalize a generally accepted behavior online.

We perform a comprehensive measurement analysis of Silk Road, an anonymous, international online marketplace that operates as a Tor hidden service and uses Bitcoin as its exchange currency. We gather and analyze data over eight months between the end of 2011 and 2012, including daily crawls of the marketplace for nearly six months in 2012. We obtain a detailed picture of the type of goods being sold on Silk Road, and of the revenues made both by sellers and Silk Road operators. Through examining over 24,400 separate items sold on the site, we show that Silk Road is overwhelmingly used as a market for controlled substances and narcotics, and that most items sold are available for less than three weeks. The majority of sellers disappears within roughly three months of their arrival, but a core of 112 sellers has been present throughout our measurement interval. We evaluate the total revenue made by all sellers, from public listings, to slightly over USD 1.2 million per month; this corresponds to about USD 92,000 per month in commissions for the Silk Road operators. We further show that the marketplace has been operating steadily, with daily sales and number of sellers overall increasing over our measurement interval. We discuss economic and policy implications of our analysis and results including ethical considerations for future research in this area.

We examine the cost for an attacker to pay users to execute arbitrary code-potentially malware. We asked users at home to download and run an executable we wrote without being told what it did and without any way of knowing it was harmless. Each week, we increased the payment amount. Our goal was to examine whether users would ignore common security advice-not to run untrusted executables-if there was a direct incentive, and how much this incentive would need to be. We observed that for payments as low as $0.01, 22% of the people who viewed the task ultimately ran our executable. Once increased to $1.00 this proportion increased to 43%. We show that as the price increased, more and more users who understood the risks ultimately ran the code. We conclude that users are generally unopposed to running programs of unknown provenance, so long as their incentives exceed their inconvenience., To appear in Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC'11), held in St Lucia, on February 28-March 4, 2011. Government or Federal Purpose Rights License. The original document contains color images.

One Click Fraud is an online confidence scam that has been plaguing an increasing number of Japanese Internet users, in spite of new laws and the mobilization of police task forces. In this scam, the victim clicks on a link presented to them, only to be informed that they just entered a binding contract and are required to pay a registration fee for a service. Even though no money is legally owed, a large number of users prefer to pay up, because of potential embarrassment due to the type of service requested (e.g., pornographic goods). Using public reports of fraudulent websites as a source of data, we analyzed over 2,000 reported One Click Fraud incidents. By correlating several attributes (WHOIS data, bank accounts, phone numbers, malware installed, etc.), we discover that a few fraudsters are seemingly responsible for a majority of the scams, and evidence a number of loopholes these miscreants exploit. We further show that, while some of these sites may also be engaging in other illicit activities such as spamming, the connection between different types of scams is much more tenuous than expected. Last, we show that the rise in the number of these frauds is fueled by high expected monetary gains in return for very little risk. The quantitative data obtained gives us an interesting window on the economic dynamics of some online criminal syndicates., Sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation under ITR award CCF-0424422 (TRUST).

Musotto, R. & Wall, D.S. (2021). Nothing like the mafia: cybercriminals are much like the everyday, poorly paid business worker. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/nothing-like-the-mafia-cybercriminals-are-much-like-the-everyday-poorly-paid-business-worker-150953