Law Enforcement in Digital Society

Worldwide child pornography networks that are dismantled by the police, hacks that disrupt entire businesses, and people who are victims of dating scams: this is just a sample of the news reports that appear in the media about computer crime. Law Enforcement in Digital Society is about the social context of this new type of crime and most of all about legislation connected to it. The authors discuss the subject from various angles, using classic legal, sociological-legal, criminological and legalphilosophical perspectives. First, the impact the advent of the internet has had on our society as a whole and on crime in particular will be discussed. Next, this book discusses basic concepts and concepts that are important for this theme. It then provides an overview of the most important laws and regulations in the field of criminal law and criminal procedure that have been put in place during the past decades with respect to computer crime. The authors discuss these subjects from a Dutch perspective, placed in an international context. Three common forms of computer crime are discussed in greater detail, namely: hacking, e-fraud and child pornography. Finally, attention is paid to how the police fight cybercrime and what important problems police officers face, both in practical and legal terms

Cybercriminal networks, Social Ties and Online Forums: Social Ties Versus Digital Ties within Phishing and Malware Networks

Online forums serve as offender convergence settings for cybercriminals, but it is unknown whether all cybercriminal networks use forums. Important questions are how cybercriminals meet, how cybercriminal networks develop and what this means for the criminal capabilities of these networks. To gain insight into these questions, we analysed 18 criminal investigations into phishing and malware networks and developed four models of growth. Social ties still play an important role in the origin and growth of the majority of networks. Forums, however, also play a significant role in a number of networks, for example, to find suitable co-offenders or to get into contact with enablers. Criminals with access to forums are able to increase criminal capabilities of their network relatively quickly

Persoonlijkheidskenmerken van e-fraudeslachtoffers

With the digitization of society, perpetrators gained new tools to commit crimes. Online fraud, also referred to as e-fraud, is one of the most common types of cybercrime. The present study focusses on two types of e-fraud: phishing and online consumer fraud. Although e-fraud always contains a digital component, the human is the weakest link in such crimes. Perpetrators deceive their victims to acquire sensitive data or to conclude a fraudulent sale, which makes victims unwillingly participate in the offence. However, not every person adheres to such fraudulent schemes. This raises the question what makes some people comply with these schemes and thus become a victim of cybercrime, while others do not. In this study, the differences between personality traits of e-fraud victims and the Dutch population were investigated. Personality traits influence the way people process information and react to situations, which also applies when people are confronted with e-fraud. Data were collected through an online survey, in which 224 e-fraud victims participated. The outcomes of the survey were compared with norm groups representative for the Dutch population. E-fraud victims, compared to the Dutch population, scored higher on extraversion, altruism and conscientiousness, and lower on neuroticism. Based on the findings, recommendations have been made for the development of targeted preventive measures against e-fraud