Cybercrime and Security: An Analysis of Online and Romance Fraud

This report delves into the pervasive issue of cybercrime, with a specific focus on online and romance fraud. It begins by defining cybercrime and highlighting its increasing prevalence in our technology-driven society, where globalization and the widespread use of digital devices have created new opportunities for criminals. The report then examines the intricacies of online fraud, including phishing, spoofing, and various other scams, using real-world examples to illustrate the methods employed by criminals. It further explores romance fraud, a particularly insidious form of cybercrime, detailing how scammers manipulate victims through online dating sites and social media. The report highlights the financial and emotional toll of these crimes, emphasizing the importance of awareness and prevention. It also discusses the historical development of online fraud, tracing its evolution from early e-commerce scams to more sophisticated techniques. The report concludes by underscoring the need for individuals to be vigilant and informed about the tactics used by cybercriminals to protect themselves from becoming victims.

CYBERCRIME
AND
SECURITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Cybercrime can be referred as a computer oriented crime which involves usage of
computer and network (Broadhurst, 2017). It is a illegal activity which is attempt with the use of
a computer as an instrument to further illegal ends which includes trafficking in child
pornography and intellectual property, committing fraud, violating privacy and stealing
identities. In the present project online fraud and romance fraud is being discussed. Online and
romance fraud is a illegal activity which is unlawful and is being performed with the help of
internet which can include hiding any information or providing incorrect information. Their
importance, prevalence and historical development is being discussed in the current report.
MAIN BODY
In the present era, where society is technology driven, most of the people use various
devices for the purpose of making life simple (Sarre, Lau and Chang, 2018). Technology also
helped in connecting people all around the world by globalization. Regular use of technological
devices has radically impacted the way of living of each individual in the society which can
consist of way of communication and conducting their daily lives. Internet also helped people to
connect with people in a more significant manner and relatively economically. Rather, this usage
of technology have several threats which are necessary to understand by each and every
individual in order to prevent themselves from becoming a victim of cybercrime. Cybercrime is a
unlawful activity which involves usage of computers or digital sources with the purpose of
targeting a crime related to technological factors. Cybercrime can be referred as the crime which
is practices over internet. There are several types of cybercrime which can be performed by a
criminal that includes hacking, darknet drug dealing, cyber harassment and stalking, spamming,
online child grooming, revenge pornography, online fraud and romance fraud (Farrell and Birks,
2018).
The major aspect where cybercrime is performed majorly is online fraud and romance
fraud. These are the two frauds which are interlinked and are the major aspects of cybercrime
which have increased in a recent period of time. Online frauds can be referred as the frauds
which re being performed by criminal with the help of internet and technology by targeting
victims digital devices. In a recent period of time online fraud has increased suddenly and
effected many victims. Online crimes have raised issues regarding internet security. Hence,
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internet has become a playground for the criminals mischief. Present technology and internet
accessibility are providing a platform to criminals to take old fashion techniques in order to take
advantage of consumers (Hong and Alazab, 2017).
Online frauds can be understood by several examples like pishing, spoofing and pop up
frauds are types of online fraud. These types of frauds are performed for the purpose of
generating personal information. The best example for understanding a online fraud is a real
event which took place in Australia. Here, the scammer generated all the necessary information
from the online and social media sites which helped them to gather all the information of victim,
then the scammer called the victim asked for their bank details. Victim asked that why should
bank details provided to the scammer, but when the scammer proved himself as an appropriate
personality by providing several information which was gathered by the scammer to the victim.
Victim agreed to share account details and bank information to scammer and scammer theft the
online money through a transaction. This was a real story which took place in Australia before a
recent period of time. It not only took place in Australia, it also took place in several places like
England, India, China and many more places. There are several more incidents which can help to
understand this type of frauds. There are more types of online frauds which consist of credit card
fraud, investment fraud, auction fraud, sweeps-taker scam, online dating scam and many more
things (Martellozzo and Jane, 2017). The major victims of these frauds are youngster and
specially young females. These activities are being raised because of unawareness of youngsters
about the online scams.
Another fraud which is being performed by the scammer is romance fraud. It is a fraud or
a scam which is a confidence trick consisting of feigning romantic intentions towards a victim,
their affection is being gained and after performing all these things, their goodwill is being used
for the purpose of committing fraud. As per a report Australians lose around $75000 every day
and Americans loose around $143000 everyday. These figures shows that how big a scammer
can earn by attempting several unlawful activities. It is essential for the people to understand the
use of internet and technology and be aware of such scams which can target them at any moment
of time and the scammers are the persons who know how to trap a victim in the situation. These
tricks are very common internationally as scammer may also belong to any nation or oversea
which makes it easy for the scammer to disappear after the incident and crime (Yar and
Steinmetz, 2019).
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Romance scam can be recognised as a type of consumer scam which can consist a false
relationship with the help of a dating website, a social website or an email. In a specific study it
is cleared that most of the romance frauds originates from dating websites and social networking
websites (Holt, Bossler and Seigfried-Spellar, 2017). The major intention behind this scam is to
clearly defraud the victim by initiating a relationship online. Electric communication is such a
technology which makes easy for the criminal to reach victims in order to fraud them. The mode
of operation has also made it difficult to identify the criminal with arresting them and
prosecuting the offenders. For the purpose of initiating this approach, scammer establishes their
fake profile on several legitimate dating websites. They mostly use high quality and professional
looking photos with the combination of attractive profile description for the purpose of attracting
potential victims and victims are also unable to identify that are they scammer or a genuine
person they are talking to. For adding realism to the profile, scammers use similar models
different clicks which strengthens credibility of the scheme because additional photographs can
be added if victims requests (Gillespie, 2019).
These scammers are well known of regulations of dating websites. After chatting on
dating websites, they try to establish their communication on a external channel other than dating
site as, these dating sites block bogus accounts of fake personalities. Further, scammer will
establish a external channel with this an additional means of engagement will be employed. This
can be employed in the form of a direct call, or a social networking website mails to the victim
daily, or scammer can approach victim several times a day too for the major purpose of
deepening the relationship which will significantly build trust by the victim. In a very short
period of time, scammer begins declaring love for the victim. This type of scam has been
observed that the victims of dating scams communicates in a more significant manner s
compared to other online scams. Victims make several attempts to meet the scammer. However,
scammer has several strategies to prevent such meetings (Holt, Burruss and Bossler, 2015).
The declaration of love from both the ends can possibly the onset of reciprocal
affirmations. Here the initiation of the next step is begin with beginning of fraud. From this end,
fraud is being started by building a well framed story by scammer for asking the money from
scammer. The most common story which is being used by scammers in in Australia is like
scammer asks for money as they are in a condition where their relative is dying or dead and
scammer has to reach them and need money for booking tickets (Lusthaus, 2016). Another way
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is requesting money for the purpose of paying medical bills or fees. From here, scammer
convince the victim that there are no available funds with them at the moment or the scammer
doesn't have any personal funds due to any unlucky circumstances. Whatever, scammer just
needs money, so they demand money for solving any uneven crises which can be in terms of
living expenses or it can be in form of scammer needs money for being in contact with the
victim. Scammer also brings in new personalities like virtual relatives of scammer for gaining
sympathy. In starting stage, scammer demands for small amount of money to draw the victim
into scam, that effects in making the victim feel committed to relationship and continues to
supply small amount of funds. Sometimes, scammer returns a few amount of money for the
purpose of ensuring victim that the money will be returned and then scammer asks for big
amount where victims agree to transfer. They usually shows an intention to refund the some as
soon as they have access to their resources (Lusthaus and Varese, 2017).
Another online fraud which is taking place internationally is determined as Nigerian 419
letter. It is a advanced fee fraud in which a huge amount is offered to victim and promised to be
paid. However, in order to receive this money, victim is requested to pay a processing fee which
is required to process the transaction. In this scam, contact to victims are majorly made through
emails or messages from a important sounding person. In the next level of scam, victims
approach the scammer through phone, where the victim is asked to pay the fees which is
necessary in order to release the money. The victim is asked for money at several moments till
the victim stops sending money, here scam ends. This is a very successful scam which is majorly
practices in Australia and Africa by the offenders (Mayer, 2015).
It is essential to understand the importance of preventing online fraud. There is a act
being created by several governments internationally for the purpose of stopping various types of
internet frauds. In order to prevent online frauds like stolen credit cards, identity theft and
chargebacks, users of internet must make sure to avoid the chance of risk in falling prey to such
types of scams. The main reason for theft of personal information in most of the cases is
improper anti virus protection in many computer systems which are being used by companies.
Online fraud is being taking place internationally from a log period of time. Basically,
first online fraud was noticed in the year 1994 with the starting of e-commerce (van de Weijer
and Leukfeldt, 2017). The very first fraud was including a famous name for the purpose of
committing the fraud. From the year 1998, internet took a major market and filled with number
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of e-commerce sites. In the early period, scammers use to create their own websites of dummy
merchants where they use to harvest their own credit cards through their own sites. They took
personal informations and use it for ransoming the money from victims of such companies. They
also use their credit card for purchasing and at the time of pay back of bills, company shut downs
and is dissolved as if their was no such organisation. As the sites like e-bay and uBid came, a
new method of fraud appeared where customers were offered same products with less prices. In
this case products were fake or duplicate either products were not sent. Till the time offenders
are searched they disappear by deleting all the records (Décary-Hétu, 2016).
It is being developing from a recent period of time. The main reason for increasing online
fraud is unawareness of such activities which are being happening. It is essential for an
individual to understand and be aware of such activity to prevent being scammed by a offender
(Graham and Smith, 2019).
CONCLUSION
From the present report, it can be concluded that cybercrime has increased in a recent
period of time which has effected number of peoples. This report also concludes that online fraud
and romance fraud are the most happening fraud internationally which are to be considered by
every individual in order to preventing being scammed. Further this report concludes that it is
important to be aware about all the cybercrime for being safe and keeping all the information
private and confidential. Lastly, this report concludes that prevalence and development of
cybercrime was started with the implementation of e-commerce which supported to rise online
scams.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Broadhurst, R., 2017. Cybercrime in Australia. In The Palgrave Handbook of Australian and
New Zealand Criminology, Crime and Justice (pp. 221-235). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Sarre, R., Lau, L.Y.C. and Chang, L.Y., 2018. Responding to cybercrime: current trends.
Farrell, G. and Birks, D., 2018. Did cybercrime cause the crime drop?. Crime science. 7(1). p.8.
Hong, S.H. and Alazab, M., 2017. Cybercrime and Data Breach: Privacy Protection through the
Regulation of Voluntary Notification. Prepared for the Korea Legislation Research
Institute (KLRI).
Martellozzo, E. and Jane, E.A. eds., 2017. Cybercrime and its victims. Taylor & Francis.
Yar, M. and Steinmetz, K.F., 2019. Cybercrime and society. SAGE Publications Limited.
Holt, T.J., Bossler, A.M. and Seigfried-Spellar, K.C., 2017. Cybercrime and digital forensics:
An introduction. Routledge.
Gillespie, A.A., 2019. Cybercrime: key issues and debates. Routledge.
Holt, T.J., Burruss, G.W. and Bossler, A., 2015. Policing cybercrime and cyberterror.
Holt, T.J. and Bossler, A.M., 2015. Cybercrime in progress: Theory and prevention of
technology-enabled offenses. Routledge.
Lusthaus, J., 2016. Cybercrime: the industry of anonymity(Doctoral dissertation, University of
Oxford).
Lusthaus, J. and Varese, F., 2017. Offline and local: The hidden face of cybercrime. Policing: A
Journal of Policy and Practice.
Mayer, J., 2015. Cybercrime litigation. U. Pa. L. Rev.. 164. p.1453.
van de Weijer, S.G. and Leukfeldt, E.R., 2017. Big five personality traits of cybercrime
victims. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 20(7). pp.407-412.
Décary-Hétu, D., 2016. Policing cybercrime and cyberterror.
Graham, R.S. and Smith, S.K., 2019. Cybercrime and Digital Deviance.
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