Cybercrime Challenges in UAE: Understanding Internet Governance

Cybercrime in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) presents significant challenges as technological advancements continue to evolve. The research explores how internet governance plays a critical role in managing cyber threats by implementing strategic policies and frameworks. Key areas of concern include the vulnerabilities associated with unprotected networks, public Wi-Fi usage, and the lack of awareness among users about cybersecurity protocols. Solutions proposed focus on enhancing user education, strengthening government oversight through organizational security boards, and adopting robust preventive measures such as installing security applications. The report emphasizes collaboration between government bodies and citizens to effectively combat cybercrime, highlighting the need for stringent enforcement and efficient judicial processes once criminal activities are identified.

Running head: SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORIAL SCIENCE
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORIAL SCIENCE
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Executive Summary
The following report is a discussion on the governance of internet and controlling of cyber-
crimes in United Arab Emirates. The people of UAE have a feeling of insecurity while accessing
the internet services. This is because the country has faced issues regarding cyber-crimes in the
past and still many of them are victims of cyber-crimes. The report highlights the major issues
that led to the causes of such cyber-crimes and its influence on the people of the country. The
report presents some solutions that can be recommended to prevent such threats in the near
future. The report also contains a self-reflection on the mentioned issue and the preventive
measures that can be implemented by the government of the country to avoid these crimes to
offer the people of the country a protected and safe network of internet.

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Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
Results of the Study.............................................................................................................3
Description.......................................................................................................................3
Understanding..................................................................................................................4
Influence..........................................................................................................................6
Predictions.......................................................................................................................7
Self-Reflections...................................................................................................................7
Observation......................................................................................................................7
Solutions..........................................................................................................................8
Measures..........................................................................................................................8
References............................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Cyber-crime is one of the major cyber concerns that has come up in the recent years in
almost all the countries. Be it developed, developing or the under developed one, the government
of all the nations are facing massive problems in solving these issues. With the span of time, the
technology has evolved keeping a pace with it. This has helped the people of the nation in both
the beneficial and harmful ways. The advantages of it has been utilized for the development of
the population as these technical inventions has made many scientific and economic researches
possible and as result it has boost the growth of the country. On the other hand, these inventions
have been exploited to accomplish crimes that ruined the economic development of the country
(Al Neyadi et al., 2015).
Here, in this report it will be discussed how cyber-crimes has interrupted the use of
internet in the United Arab Emirates causing a solemn concern for the people as well as for the
government of the country. The report also discusses the preventive measures and approaches
that can be taken to avoid such threats in the future so that the natives can utilize these
opportunities for their development in both socio-cultural and economic sphere of the country
(Al Neyadi et al., 2015). The report also gives a prediction of such crimes in the future in case
the government do not take much preventive measures to restrict such risks.
The report concludes with a self-reflection that addresses the impact of these crimes on
the society of UAE and the required efforts to minimize such problems. It also highlights the
effective protective measures that are adopted by the government to evade such catastrophes.

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Results of the Study
Description
A recent study by International Journal of Scientific & Technology on the Internet
Governance & Cyber Crime in UAE has revealed that most of the people of UAE feel insecure
while accessing the internet (Al Neyadi et al., 2015). This is because most of them had faced
harassments while using internet. As it has been found out by the recent studies, most of these
crimes are targeted at the privacy of the citizen. This includes personal information about
property, governmental issues and many other serious issues which are supposed to be a matter
of secrecy for the people. At times these crimes can extend to the level character damaging of an
individual and such can harm his/her reputation creating problems in both the personal and
professional life of that individual. The study exposes that these cyber activities like offensive
acts, issues regarding copyrights, terrorism acts, security of state and hatred for religion are the
by-products of a few grave and serious issues which might have been faced by the criminal at
certain periods of his life (Al Neyadi et al., 2015). The serious concern that is mainly responsible
for such disorder is the lack of social intellect ethics that might have been a reason for their
excessive hunger for accumulating either power or funds. These reasons traces back to the social,
cultural and economic background where the criminal has grown up in his/her childhood.
The research that has been conducted here states that there are still people in the country
who are still facing such offensive crimes due to their negligence about the cyber-crimes that has
cropped up in the recent years. The main purpose of this investigation is to identify the effective
measures to govern and regulate the uses of internet among the citizen of the country to decrease
the number of victims attacked by the cyber-crimes (Kahler, 2015). The research also prepares a
list of laws and policies that are implemented by the government to control the criminal

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offensive acts of cyber harassment. Along with this, the report furnishes the laws under which a
person can be charged for breaking these rules and regulations. The research although furnishes a
rough idea on the internet governance and cyber-crimes in UAE, the research is not clear enough
for drawing any firm conclusion. This is because the report does not specifically cover all
categories of cyber-crimes that prevails in the country like legal, political and social. With the
small span of time and structure of research, it is not able to address all the positive and the
negative approaches and the laws that are implemented for controlling cyber offences.
Understanding
The research addresses the term internet governance which mainly implies the awareness
on the application of new informative technology in the practice of communication and identifies
the threats that intimidate these new technologies and disturbs the entire system of internet
communication. The etymology also encompasses the terms and laws that are formed to
constraint such mishap by forming governmental rules and regulations. From the research, it has
been derived that the context cyber-crime encircles any illegal offences that deals with
computers, internet and networking systems. The term internet governance includes the intricacy
of implementing internet governance policies which can be categorized into five dimensional
frame work namely- legal, social, economic, cultural and developmental. Though in the recent
years with the advent of new perceptive technologies, the complexities are reduced and the
inventions have made possible guidelines that check the outflow of data illegally.
According to the research study, it has been acknowledged that most of the internet users
in UAE have suffered an attack of online cyber-crime while accessing internet. According to
Hasbini (2014), the rate of cyber-crime has increased which are mostly targeted at the privacy
issues of the citizens of the country. These issues are mostly related to the personal property

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matters, governing information of the government and the subjects of reputation. These issues
became more severe when there is no scope for identification or prove to identify the criminal.
Since UAE is more vulnerable for its economic status throughout the world the cyber offences
are often targeted to the citizens of the nation. Another reason for the attack of cyber-crimes is
the over using of mobile phones by the citizens (DeNardis, 2012). Nowadays, with the increase
of depending on the internet usages for every commercial and communication purposes, the
different forms of cyber-crimes are increasing. These diverse forms like fraudulent offences,
threats and at times abuses are expanding with the progress of technology and thus are becoming
a serious hindrance in the path of development of the country. On the other hand, Berger (2012)
opines that this problem of cyber-crime is not only a local concern, but also it is an international
problem that the nation is facing with the advancement of technology. Moreover, he also states
that these cyber-crimes are intentionally planned as there are many scrupulous people whose
main motive is to steal and hack the organizational resources. Mostly in UAE, lack of education
among the people accessing the internet is a major cause for being a victim of cyber-attack (Van,
M& Mueller, 2013). The lack of proper knowledge among the internet users is an opportunity
that are utilized by the criminals to trap the data resources of the user. According to a study
published by Gaskel (2015), it has been revealed that half of the young internet users in the UAE
mentioned as “children online” most of the times spent their times on the adult content, while
22% of the young users visit and access websites that are mostly related to gambling (Kurbalija,
2016). Another major reason of falling a prey to the cyber-crime, is the use of unprotected Wi-Fi.
Theopen and free public networks are always the main center that are focused by the attackers
for accessing the personal data sources of the individuals using them. Since most of the users
prefers to access internet from their mobile phones, it becomes easier for the hackers to gain all

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the personal information that are stored on the device of the users. Nowadays in UAE, another
form of attack has become very popular where the user will receive a SMS mentioning the link
of a website and most of these messages are advertisements data that the user cannot resist
himself from using it. Then this link when clicked by the user steals all the personal information
that includes the saved passwords, data and personal photos of the user as the link installs a
certain application that has the capacity to monitor all the activities of the user (Ellison & Boyd,
2013). Hence, this gives the attacker a chance to indulge in illegal and criminal activities
utilizing these sources of the individual.
Influence
These illegal and illegitimate activities are all results of the carelessness of both the
people of the nation and the government of the country. These cyber-crimes have a great
influence on the real life of the people and it is very essential for the government of the country
to eradicate this in order to present its citizens a secured and safety network (Choucri &
Goldsmith, 2012). The protection and safety of the network can be achieved if the government
implement certain steps and measures to protect its citizens. First and foremost, it is the duty of
the UAE government to raise awareness among the internet users regarding the safety of the
internet access. Since most of the user’s access internet from their mobile phones, the users must
install anti-virus services which will prevent the outflow of the data from the user’s device
(Musiani et al., 2016). The internet governance deals with the policies and precautions that have
been taken by the police of UAE to control all the cyber-crimes that exists in UAE. The UAE
government has formed cyber-crime boards and organizational security that handles cyber-
crimes. On the other hand, the police of Abu Dhabi have created Abu Dhabi’s State Security
Apparatus and the department of Anti-Electronic Crimes that deals and investigates the cyber-

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crime to spy in the internet and its users (Pavan, 2012). Apart from that, the government of the
country has formed some regulations that blocks the access of certain websites for the users in
UAE.
Predictions
In a nation like UAE, where the citizens are vulnerable to the attack of cyber-crime it is
very likely that these can again take place in the long run. This is because the citizens of the
country are still not completely aware of the cyber-crimes that the country is still fighting to
eradicate. In UAE, most of the internet users are between the age of 18 to 25 and are not much
careful while accessing the internet (Wall, 2015). The excessive use of adult networking sites is
also a cause of the massive cyber-attack as these sites are prone to the attack of the criminals.
Thus, it can be concluded that the country is still not enough secured and protected for the use of
internet access.
Self-Reflections
Observation
The research which has been conducted here has revealed the weakness of UAE in
creating a safe and secured network for its citizen. The observations that has been observed by
me while conducting the research proved that the country is prone to the attack of cyber-crime as
most of the internet users are not enough aware of the cyber security rules and regulations. This
social issue is becoming a serious concern for the government of the country as the rates of
victims are increasing with the development of technology in the country (Mueller, Schmidt &
Kuerbis, 2013). In a country like UAE, where most of the internet sources are not properly
secured, it becomes easy for the criminals to indulge in criminal activity. In UAE, since most of

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the young users visits adult websites and gambling sites, the attackers get the access of the
personal information of the user easily.
Solutions
At present in UAE people has become more concerned and aware of the cyber-attacks
and hence they access the internet following certain security steps. In order to completely
eradicate this, I think both the government and the people of the country must work hand in
hand. According to me the primary solution that can be mentioned is to avoid the use of
unprotected and the unknown network sites as these sites are mainly infused with viruses and
malware applications. The second major step that can protect people from the attack of cyber
criminals is to avoid using the unknown public and free Wi-Fi which are the main focus of the
criminals (Jewkes, & Yar, 2013).
Measures
While performing this research, I have come up with some measures that are
implemented by the government to protect the internet users. One of the major preventive step
that is implemented by the UAE government is the formation of organizational security boards
that spy the activities of the internet users. The second major preventive step is the installation of
security applications on the devices of the internet users that protects and secures the data and
information of the user.
The measures that are implemented for the protection of the security of the network, are
although effective is not enough protected and efficient to control the access of the internet users.
The government must take major steps to punish such criminal offences after detecting the
criminals. However, it is recommended that the government and the judicial board of the country

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must deal the complaints against the cyber-crime effectively once they identify the source of
such offensive activities.

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References
Al Neyadi, A., Al Kaabi, A., Al Kaabi, L., Al Ghufli, M., Al Shamsi, M., & Khan, M. (2015)
Internet Governance & Cyber Crimes in UAE.
Choucri, N., & Goldsmith, D. (2012). Lost in cyberspace: Harnessing the Internet, international
relations, and global security. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68(2), 70-77.
DeNardis, L. (2012). Hidden levers of Internet control: An infrastructure-based theory of Internet
governance. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 720-738.
Ellison, N. B., & Boyd, D. M. (2013). Sociality through social network sites. In The Oxford
handbook of internet studies.
Jewkes, Y., & Yar, M. (Eds.). (2013). Handbook of Internet crime. Routledge.
Kahler, M. (Ed.). (2015). Networked politics: agency, power, and governance. Cornell
University Press.
Kurbalija, J. (2016). An introduction to internet governance. Diplo Foundation.
Mueller, M., Schmidt, A., & Kuerbis, B. (2013). Internet security and networked governance in
international relations. International Studies Review, 15(1), 86-104.
Musiani, F., Cogburn, D. L., DeNardis, L., & Levinson, N. S. (Eds.). (2016). The turn to
infrastructure in Internet governance. Springer.
Pavan, E. (2012). Frames and connections in the governance of global communications: A
network study of the internet governance forum. Lexington Books.