How does cyber technology impact interactions between offenders and victims?

Technology is both helpful and destructive depending on how it’s being utilized. For example, most people choose to use technology to browse the internet, complete schoolwork, play video games, or just do work. While this may seem innocent, the world we live in is not so forgiving. Technology could have a major impact between offenders/criminals and their victims. Most people today use social media, for example, to show off their luxurious lifestyles. Criminals could utilize these posts and conduct surveillance on how someone moves around (with or without security), whether they travel in groups or alone, what city they live in, and calculate their risk to reward ratio to determine if the victim is worth robbing. Technology in this instance was a had a direct impact on the robbery that would take place between the offender and the victim. Had it not been for the social media posts, the victim would’ve never put himself out there, and the offender would’ve never been able to “scope” out the victim. Another impact that technology has between offenders and victims is fraud. With phishing schemes becoming more and more sophisticated, it is easy to fall victim to fraud. One instance could be receiving an email from your bank, saying someone attempted to login to your account and that you should change your username and password immediately, as the victim clicks on the link, the offender is able to retrieve whatever information is inputted during the prompt to change the username and password. The offender could then take this information and commit bank fraud to take a victim’s money. From just these two examples, it is easy to see how crime, with the use of technology, is expansive. Someone could be stalking you without you ever knowing or wiring money out of your account [robbing you] without needing to be in the same country as you. It is important to practice good cyber security best practices to ensure that you do not fall victim to cybercrimes. With technology, it is easier for offenders to get away with crimes because they could potentially never get near you, therefore, when you want to report the crime, a thorough investigation must be done to determine who the anonymous offender truly is.