Impact of COVID-19 on Cybercrime Levels in England and Wales: A Study

This research project examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cybercrime levels in England and Wales between 2020 and 2021. It investigates the trends and shifts in crime opportunities during the pandemic, focusing on frauds suffered by organizations and individuals. The research utilizes qualitative and quantitative methods, drawing from secondary sources like books, journals, and official police data to analyze the increase in cybercrimes. The findings suggest a change in crime patterns, with a decrease in physical crimes and a rise in cybercrimes, indicating that criminals adapted to digital methods during the pandemic. The study concludes that cybercrime, online fraud, and related offenses increased due to the misuse of computers and technology, highlighting the altered pattern of victimization during the COVID-19 outbreak. Desklib offers access to this and other solved assignments for students.

Research Project
(Impact of COVID-19 on cybercrime levels by
considering 2020-2021 of open police-recorded
data in Wales and England)

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................3
Research aim ..................................................................................................................3
Research Objectives........................................................................................................4
Research Questions.........................................................................................................4
Literature review ..............................................................................................................4
What are the trends of cybercrime and shifts in crime opportunities during global
pandemic COVID-19?..................................................................................................4
What are the frauds suffered by organisations and individuals due to cybercrime
during COVID-19 within Wales and England?............................................................4
What is the impact of COVID-19 on cybercrime levels by considering 2020-2021 of
open police-recorded data in Wales and England?.....................................................5
Proposed research methodology.....................................................................................5
Proposed time table.........................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................7
References ......................................................................................................................9

Introduction
The global pandemic of COVID-19 has minimized the social interactions in
which significant impact is seen over pattern of crime (Regalado, Timmer and Jawaid,
2022). Period of national lock down have seen during the situation of coronavirus and
this manner rate of crimes has minimized. Crime type such as robbery, theft have seen
a fall during the COVID time but at the same time the pattern of crime has changed as
now digital crimes are increasing. People started misusing the computers in which
different offences are conducted . The current poster is related with examining the
impact of COVID-19 on the level of cybercrime within England between the year of
2020-2021.
Figure 1 Distribution of the key Covid-19 inflicted cyber threats based on member countries' feedback
The major rationale of this research is to examine the level of increase in
cybercrimes in the year of 2020-2021 due to the outbreak of COVID-19 (Doig, A. and
Levi, M. eds., 2021). The researcher has chosen the current topic as it was of interest
for them and researcher will increase their personal understanding and knowledge by
executing the current research.
Research aim
Research Aim: To measure the impact of COVID-19 on cybercrime levels by
considering 2020-2021 of open police-recorded data in Wales and England.

Research Objectives
 To determine the trends of cybercrime and shifts in crime opportunities during global
pandemic COVID-19
 To analyse the fraud suffered by organisations and individuals due to cybercrime
during COVID-19 within Wales and England
 To identify the impact of COVID-19 on cybercrime levels by considering 2020-2021 of
open police-recorded data in Wales and England
Research Questions
 What are the trends of cybercrime and shifts in crime opportunities during global
pandemic COVID-19?
 What are the frauds suffered by organisations and individuals due to cybercrime
during COVID-19 within Wales and England?
 What is the impact of COVID-19 on cybercrime levels by considering 2020-2021
of open police-recorded data in Wales and England?
Literature review
What are the trends of cybercrime and shifts in crime opportunities during global
pandemic COVID-19?
According to Levi and Smith, (2021), the trend of cybercrime has changed
within the scenario of global pandemic as due to worldwide lockdown physical crimes
were minimised but at the same time cyber fraud was increased. These frauds are
related with hacking of social media, frauds within online shopping and many others.
The cyber dependent crimes are performed over an individual personnel rather than on
an organisation so it can be said that during this time individuals were highly impacted.
What are the frauds suffered by organisations and individuals due to cybercrime during
COVID-19 within Wales and England?
According to Board, (2020), during COVID-19 time the organisation were
supposed to provide remote working facilities to their employee which led different

types of frauds. For the organisation the threat was related with leaking of
organisational information and for individual threat was related with leaking of their
personal and bank details.
What is the impact of COVID-19 on cybercrime levels by considering 2020-2021 of
open police-recorded data in Wales and England?
According to Buil-Gil and et. al., (2021), the cybercrimes were increased due to
the outbreak of COVID-19 as all the physical fraud was stopped and internet related
crime was increased. The pattern of victimisation was changed due to the reason rise
in cybercrimes was seen.
Proposed research methodology
In the current research qualitative and quantitative research methods will be
followed so that in-depth and numerical information related with the research topic can
be exerted (Taneja, Taneja and Gupta, 2011).The research has used several
secondary sources such as books and journals so that to acquire information related
with the topic and to manage the concepts of the research (Hawdon, Parti and
Dearden, 2020). These methods would be helpful in acquiring related and aligned
information within the research so that researcher would be able to attain research
objectives in clear manner. The major benefit of choosing qualitative and quantitative
research method is that this will develop in-depth and factual conclusion (Upadhyay
and KC, 2014). Secondary data collection methods will be used for collecting both
quantitative and qualitative data. Bryman research method are associated with social
qualitative research in which the author stated that with the help of qualitative data
collection and analysis method within social science in-depth analysis can be made on
the research topic so that significant conclusion can be drawn (Bryman, 2016). For the
current research secondary data is required so that in-depth analysis regarding the
topic can be made. In order to collect data researcher will use authentic sources and
information using official website (https://data.police.uk/data/) and different books,
articles and newspaper records.

Proposed time table

Conclusion
From the above discussion this can be concluded that due to COVID-19
outbreak the pattern of crime has been changed which means that the criminals have
adopted different methods to do crimes. Amid COVID-19 the crime rate of theft,
murders have been decreased die to which people are able to live healthy life. On the
other hand, crimes related with digital media have increased such as cybercrime,
online fraud and many others. This means that the people started misusing the
computer and technology in which pattern of victimization has been changed.
Figure 2 Amount of monetary damage caused by reported cyber-crime to the IC3 from 2001 to 2020(in
million U.S. dollars)

References
Books and journals
Board, P.A., 2020. Public Document Pack.
Bryman, A., 2016. Social research methods. Oxford university press.
Buil-Gil, D. and Zeng, Y., 2021. Meeting you was a fake: investigating the increase in
romance fraud during COVID-19. Journal of Financial Crime.
Doig, A. and Levi, M. eds., 2021. Frauds and Financial Crimes: Trends, Strategic
Responses, and Implementation Issues in England and Wales. Routledge.
Levi, M. and Smith, R.G., 2021. Fraud and pandemics. Journal of Financial Crime.
Regalado, J., Timmer, A. and Jawaid, A., 2022. Crime and deviance during the
COVID‐19 pandemic. Sociology Compass, 16(4), p.e12974.
Taneja, S.S., Taneja, P.K. and Gupta, R.K., 2011. Researches in corporate social
responsibility: A review of shifting focus, paradigms, and
methodologies. Journal of Business Ethics, 101(3), pp.343-364.
Upadhyay, P. and KC, V.K., 2014. Qualitative Researches In Social
Sciences. Janapriya Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 3, pp.54-61.