Breaking Down “Estimating Causes of Cyber Crime”
Introduction
The article I decided to review this time is “Estimating Causes of Cyber Crime: Evidence from Panel Data FGLS Estimator”. It starts by stating that the primary factor of why people resort to criminalized hacking has moved away from bragging rights, and primarily for monetary gain. It also states that the advances cybercriminals have made in the last decade have made it increasingly difficult to prevent successful intrusions thanks to sophisticated malware, spyware, and the like. The most problematic detail to note is the increase in hacking attempts by people with little to no background in information technologies. This has led to a huge potential for financially struggling or marginalized people to enter a life of cybercrime to make ends meet, or even just to “get even” with society. This shows how different motives can push people in varying circumstances to turn to cybercrime, and how they can rationalize it to themselves.
The Study
The study utilizes archival data including “cross-country data”, and records of Internet users in various countries. It also utilizes “routine activity theory”, the study of user’s routine activities, as well as “social learning theory”, behavior that is observed and mimicked by others. All of this data and theories demonstrate elements of sociology, and psychology done within the study. They found that an increase in unemployment directly correlated to an increase in internet usage among citizens, which also increased the number of phishing scams as well as spam. Another study referenced in this journal also correlates a reduced GDP to an increase in spam, and phishing. One of the biggest reasonings for this can be attributed to the rising unemployment among younger people who lack experience and job opportunities, but make up for it in modern computer skills, which can lead them to committing cybercrime to get by. The article goes on to say that while online anonymity, societal marginalization, economic factors, and “social learning theory” contributes to an increase in crime in general, that traditional social science theories tend to miss the mark when attempting to explain the cause behind cyber-attacks.
Conclusion
Despite earlier correlations with unemployment and GDP from previous studies, the paper found that unemployment and GDP did not contribute to cybercrime in a meaningful way, it’s more of a circumstantial situation. The increase in internet usage thanks to unemployment did see an increase in phishing scams and spam but not directly because of unemployment. The rate of cyber-crime in some of the countries in the study can instead be attributed to higher numbers of internet usage, as well as a country’s cultural factors, and societal influences.
An example being in Italy where the Mafia, a traditional Italian criminal organization, still holds a lot of sway, cyber-crimes either weren’t committed due to lack of technological knowledge, or a general lack of crime reporting. Another is the Netherlands where despite their low unemployment rate, they are ranked 4th in terms of most cyber criminals in the world; the study attributes this to the quality and reliability of the country’s internet. The difference in these country’s cultures affected cybercrimes rates differently. Overall, this journal shows that cyber-crime can’t be attributed to just a few reasons; it’s a complex issue that’s growing in scale among financially and societally marginalized groups throughout countries around the world. Whether it be for monetary gain, socio-economic factors, or selfish bragging rights, it needs to be tackled before the situation grows well beyond our control.
Work Cited:
Al-Suwaidi, N., Nobanee, H., & Jabeen, J. (2018). Estimating Causes of Cyber Crime: Evidence from Panel Data FGLS Estimator. International Journal of Cyber Criminology. Retrieved March 15, 2023, from https://www.cybercrimejournal.com/pdf/Al-Suwaidietalvol12issue2IJCC2018.pdf