Combating Cybercrime Perpetrated Via Social Media Channels Using Individual Resilience Techniques

Cybercrime is a social vice associated with modern society due to the rapid development of technology. Various studies over the years have shown that there is no society without an element of cybercrime. Cybercrime also has negative economic implications for nations and businesses globally. Over the years, several approaches have been employed to reduce the rate of cybercrime by employing various combating techniques. Hence, this study explores individual resilience techniques used in combating cybercrime perpetrated via social media channels in Abuja. Three goals and research agendas were developed to guide the research toward achieving the stated goal: a review of relevant literature, a qualitative and quantitative survey design involving about seven million, one hundred and ten thousand internet subscribers that use social media in Abuja, and a sample size of four hundred respondents from the study area were selected using the Taro Yamane purposive sampling technique. The respondents’ data were collected using a twelve-item structured questionnaire. Completed instruments of the sample size were analysed using mean values and standard deviations designed using Google Forms. The results showed that identity theft, cyberstalking, malware attacks, and cyber-casing are major cybercrimes perpetrated online by cyber attackers, and these attacks have led to harassment, child exploitation, digital piracy, and intentional damage to individuals’ online reputations. However, anti-malware, outlier detection, password managers, and multi-factor authentication (MFA) are various individual resilience techniques social media users can employ to combat cybercrime on social media. Creating more awareness of cybercrime and the various individual resilience techniques required in protecting social media accounts on web-enabled devices and setting up a special task force void of bias to help cybercrime victims regain their assets were recommended

PREVENTIVNE MJERE PROTIV RAČUNALNOG KRIMINALA: PRIBLIŽAVANJE POJEDINCU

Cybercrime is a combination of information, financial and personal security threats. The purpose of this research is to target statistical data to allocate the most effective preventive measures against cybercrime that would contribute to the combat at the level of potential (or real) cyber victims and cyber criminals. Brining the so-called Cyberethics into the life of people will be preventive against cybercrimes, as it will add to their culture of cyberspace through educational and popular science projects (such-like program that was put into action in Nigeria stroke positively). With the rapid spread of cybercrime, preventive measures geared towards individuals such as anti-criminalization, anti-bullying and anti-phishing propaganda, the practice of shaping negative attitude towards crimes, and discovery of responsibility for committing cybercrimes gain in importance. Society improvement as a counter-move to cut out criminal factors provoking a positive or neutral attitude to cybercrimes should be geared towards better living, as the higher is the standard the lower is the level of cybercrime. Taking individualized preventing measures to people prone to commit cybercrimes will prevent against such even before they take place (with cyber extortion and ransomware threats, such actions gain in relevance). For the fight against cybercrime, special programs are to level down victimization in the field of cybersecurity by fostering a shielding attitude in persons who can become victims. The path of designing such programs will lead to a drop cybercrime activity. Specific public authorities and non-governmental organizations should take part in the preventive process. All-encompassing preventive measures against cybercrime approaching individual at the international level will allow designing specific pilot programs for individualized prevention.Kibernetički kriminal je kombinacija informacijskih, financijskih i osobnih sigurnosnih prijetnji. Svrha ovog istraživanja je ciljati statističke podatke za dodjelu najučinkovitijih preventivnih mjera protiv cyber kriminala koje bi doprinijele borbi na razini potencijalnih (ili stvarnih) cyber žrtava i cyber kriminalaca. Uvođenjem tzv. Cyber-etike u život ljudi bit će preventiva protiv cyber kriminala, jer će doprinijeti njihovoj kulturi korištenja cyber-prostora kroz obrazovne i popularno-znanstvene projekte (takav program je pozitivno djelovao u Nigeriji). S naglim širenjem cyber kriminala, preventivne mjere usmjerene prema pojedincima kao što su anti-kriminalizacija, propaganda protiv zlostavljanja i anti-phishing, praksa oblikovanja negativnog stava prema zločinima i otkrivanje odgovornosti za počinjenje kibernetičkih kriminala dobivaju na važnosti. Poboljšanje društva kao protupotez za izostavljanje kriminalnih čimbenika koji izazivaju pozitivan ili neutralan stav prema kiberkriminalitetu treba biti usmjereno prema boljem životu, jer što je viši standard, to je niža razina cyber kriminala. Poduzimanje individualiziranih mjera za sprječavanje ljudi koji su skloni počiniti kibernetički kriminal spriječit će takve napade čak i prije nego što se dogode (s prijetnjama cyber iznuđivanja i ransomwarea, takve akcije dobivaju na važnosti). Za borbu protiv kibernetičkog kriminala, posebni programi su smanjivanje viktimizacije u području kibernetičke sigurnosti poticanjem zaštitnog stava osoba koje mogu postati žrtve. Put izrade takvih programa dovest će do pada aktivnosti cyber kriminala. U preventivnom procesu trebaju sudjelovati posebna javna tijela i nevladine organizacije. Sveobuhvatne preventivne mjere protiv cyber kriminala koje se približavaju pojedincu na međunarodnoj razini omogućit će osmišljavanje specifičnih pilot-programa za individualiziranu prevenciju

The Legal and Regulatory Aspect of International Cybercrime and Cybersecurity: Limits and Challenges

The development of the internet and digital technologies represent a major opportunity for humanity in transforming businesses and providing new tools for everyday communication. Internet users are spending increasing amounts of time online and undertaking a greater range of online and social networking activities. However, just like a double edged sword, the internet also presents opportunities to cybercrimes in the Information society. The nature of some ‘traditional’ crime types has been transformed by the use of computers and other information communications technology (ICT) in terms of its scale and reach, with risks extending to many aspects of social life, such as financial transactions, sexual offences, harassment and threatening behavior, and commercial damage and disorder. Cybercrime is a transnational menace in the sense that it cuts across borders. The most critical challenges of the information society have been the security of digital data and information systems and the prevention of the malicious misuse of information communications technologies by cyber criminals, terrorist groups, or state actors. Measures to address these security challenges of the information society birthed a concept known as “cyber security”. Cyber security seeks to promote and ensure the overall security of digital information and information systems with a view to securing the information society. Thus, the concept is broadly concerned with social, legal, regulatory and technological measures that will ensure the integrity, confidentiality, availability and the overall security of digital information and information systems in order to achieve a high degree of trust and security necessary for the development of a sustainable information cyber space. This dissertation contends that, on the one hand, International laws are behind in providing proper regulatory coverage for cybercrime, while, on the other hand, existing regulations have largely been unsuccessful in containing cyber security threats primarily due to complications caused by the disharmonization of cyber security laws and regulation. This dissertation also attempts to discuss the legal and regulatory aspects of cyber security in International law. An analysis of international, regional and national regulatory responses to cyber security in both developed and developing countries was made. It calls attention to the limits and challenges of these regulatory responses in the promotion of cyber security and explores several regulatory measures to address the highlighted challenges with a view to promoting global cyber security. It suggests several regulatory measures to enhance global cyber security and also emphasizes the need for the collective responsibility of states for global cyber security

A SECURITY MODEL FOR PREVENTING E-COMMERCE RELATED CRIMES

The major challenge being faced by the financial related institutions, such as e-Commerce has been insecurity. Therefore, there is urgent need to develop a scheme to protect transmitted financial information or messages from getting to the third party, intruder and/or unauthorized person(s). Such scheme will be based on Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Neural Data Security (NDS) Model. Based on this background, an AES using Time-based Dynamic Key Generation coupled with NDS model will be used to develop security model for preventing e-commerce related crimes. While AES will secure users’ details in the database server and ensures login authentications, NDS model will fragment or partition sensitive data into High and Low levels of confidentiality. The sensitivity of the data will determine, which category of confidentiality the data will fall into. The fragmented data are saved into two different databases, on two different servers and on the same datacenter. In addition, an exploratory survey was carried out using different performance metrics with different classifications of algorithms. Out of the four algorithms considered, Naive Bayes performs better as it shows, out of a total of 105 instances that were observed, 85.71% were correctly classified while 14.29% were misclassified

The Legal Aspects of Cybercrime in Nigeria: An Analysis with the UK Provisions

Cybercrime offences know no limits to physical geographic boundaries and have continued to create unprecedented issues regarding to the feasibility and legitimacy of applying traditional legislations based on geographic boundaries. These offences also come with procedural issues of enforcement of the existing legislations and continue to subject nations with problems unprecedented to its sovereignty and jurisdictions. This research is a critical study on the legal aspects of cybercrime in Nigeria, which examines how laws and regulations are made and applied in a well-established system to effectively answer questions raised by shortcomings on the implementation of cybercrime legislations, and critically reviews various laws in Nigeria relating or closely related to cybercrime. This research will provide insight into current global cybercrime legislations and the shortfalls to their procedural enforcement; and further bares the cybercrime issues in Nigeria while analysing and proffering a critique to the provisions as provided in the recently enacted Nigerian Cybercrime (Prohibition and Prevention) Act 2015, in contradistinction to the existing legal framework in the United Kingdom and the other regional enactments like the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, African Union Convention on Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection 2014, and the ECOWAS Directive on Cybercrime 2011

In the Realm of Intellectual Property: Cyber Fraud as a Major Challenge to the Copyright Protection in Nigeria

Copyright, the importance of copyright to Nation’s economy, the efforts of the Nigeria copyright laws and Copyright Commission to combat breach of Copyright is a crucial issue, all over the world and it is even more a crucial subject in Nigeria. For years now, Nigeria has depended majorly on physical natural resources as the mainstay of the nation’s economy which is no more reliable as it used to be the case. It is high time for copyright work to be properly managed for maximum economic benefit in Nigeria. As the World is growing in terms of technology, and with the advent of internet a lot of fraud are been perpetrated at the internet that is frustrating authors and creators of a work, copyright infringement abound on the internet. This work will therefore examine copyright and piracy in Nigeria and more importantly the threat posed to copyright owners at the internet and concludes with suggestions and recommendations on the ways to combat the menace. Keywords: intellectual property, copyright, cyber fraud and pirac

Countering Expansion and Organization of Terrorism in Cyberspace

Terrorists use cyberspace and social media technology to create fear and spread violent ideologies, which pose a significant threat to public security. Researchers have documented the importance of the application of law and regulation in dealing with the criminal activities perpetrated through the aid of computers in cyberspace. Using routine activity theory, this study assessed the effectiveness of technological approaches to mitigating the expansion and organization of terrorism in cyberspace. The study aligned with the purpose area analysis objective of classifying and assessing potential terrorist threats to preempt and mitigate the attacks. Data collection included document content analysis of the open-source documents, government threat assessments, legislation, policy papers, and peer-reviewed academic literature and semistructured interviews with fifteen security experts in Nigeria. Yin\u27s recommended analysis process of iterative and repetitive review of materials was applied to the documents analysis, including interviews of key public and private sector individuals to identify key themes on Nigeria\u27s current effort to secure the nation\u27s cyberspace. The key findings were that the new generation of terrorists who are more technological savvy are growing, cybersecurity technologies are effective and quicker tools, and bilateral/multilateral cooperation is essential to combat the expansion of terrorism in cyberspace. The implementation of recommendations from this study will improve the security in cyberspace, thereby contributing to positive social change. The data provided may be useful to stakeholders responsible for national security, counterterrorism, law enforcement on the choice of cybersecurity technologies to confront terrorist expansion, and organization in cyberspace

Assessing the Effectiveness of the Implementation of Cybercrimes Mitigation Strategies in Selected Commercial Banks in Tanzania

This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of implemented cybercrime mitigation strategies for commercial banks in Tanzania. Most financial sectors, like banks, are vulnerable to continuous attacks from external and internal cybercriminals such that the majority of banks spend their time updating and maintaining cybercrime mitigation strategies against cyber attacks. Despite the ongoing efforts to prevent cyber attacks the studies and experiences show that such attacks still occur regardless of the strong measures implemented against cyber attacks. It is articulated with different researchers that there is a gap to make a resilient and stronger systems against cybercrimes. This research assessed the effectiveness of cybercrime mitigation strategies by analyzing public awareness, budget allocation, support from management, and availability of skilled personnel. The study used a sample of 885 respondents from five biggest banks in Tanzania. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. The implications emanating from the study were discussed.&nbsp

THE ROLE OF FORENSIC ACCOUNTING IN MITIGATING AGAINST CYBER CRIMES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ERA: ISSUES AND PERSPECTIVES

The advent of covid-19 pandemic not only create health challenges but also created difficulties in the conduct of economic activities across the world. Due to restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic, the physical movements of individuals were restricted. Hence business transactions were conducted online through Internet services. Logistics services were adopted to move goods from the location where they were produced to where they were consumed. Payments or settlements for the products were conducted through the internet and this led to the astronomical increase in Internet fraud which culminated in the loss of valuable assets. This study was therefore conducted to examine how forensic accounting tools were adopted to investigate, track, and recover the lost assets and restore the victims to their original state prior to the loss, as well, as how the perpetrators were made to face appropriate sanctions. The study used a descriptive research design as the data for the study were obtained from secondary sources. The data were obtained through questionnaires that were administered to the personnel of agencies responsible for the management and control of cybercrimes in Nigeria and were analysed using percentages and correlation. The results of the analysis show that there was a significant effect of forensic accounting mechanisms in the management and control of cybercrimes. It also indicated that the application of forensic accounting tools was effective in obtaining admissible evidence in court. Furthermore, the result also showed a strong effect on the recovery of stolen assets.  The study concluded that increased deployment of forensic accounting tools had an effect in reducing internet fraud, and provided enough evidence for prosecution of criminals and the recovery of stolen assets. The study recommends strict monitoring of Internet transactions as well as the adoption of forensic accounting tools as critical tools for tracking and recovery of stolen assets. The study apart from contributing to expanding knowledge on forensic accounting also addresses the fears of those who intend to carry on transactions through the Internet. Also, the recommendations will provide the roadmap towards addressing the problems of internet fraud

Cashless Policy and Consumer Protection: A Critical Appraisal of the Nigerian Cyber Laws

This article in discussing the transitioning of Nigeria to a cashless economy, considers the regulatory framework in place to protect consumers from cybercrimes that surfaced with the policy. A critical appraisal of the existing cyber laws in Nigeria showed consumers have been left in the loop, whilst the law has failed to effectively protect bank consumers from the onslaught of cybercrimes which accompanied the cashless policy. An analysis of the consumer protection framework especially those issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria revealed inadequate protective mechanism for consumers whilst the required standard for compliance by banks has been evasive. Amongst the recommendations given is the need to specify the standards required for banks for effective consumer protection while a specified body should be created to ensure strict compliance. This article concludes by emphasizing that even though a cashless economy is of immense benefit, there is need for banks to put appropriate infrastructures in place that will shield its consumers from cybercrimes and enhance consumer confidence in financial institutions generally. Keywords: Cashless Economy, Bank Customers, Cybercrimes, Cyber laws, Central Bank of Nigeria, Consumer Protection. DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/100-02 Publication date:August 31st 2020