This article relates to the principles of social science in many of different ways. The article is based on “Malware Infections in the U.S. during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Study”. In the introduction of this it is describing how and why cybercrime has became even worse sense COVID-19 pandemic. They type of study they are using is an Empirical study. This type of study is based on observed and measured derives that come from knowledge that you had to experience yourself. There hypothesis that they have came up with for this is, “We believe societal changes as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, dramatically altered cybercrime”.In this article that data and analysis that they were doing is comparing COVID-19 to the effect of people’s lives but also how it takes a huge play in cybercrime which caused it to rise the most It ever has in the U.S. Also it starts to talk about that personality plays a role in cybercrime victimization which can deal with the Big Five model of personality. A term that was brought up that I find important is “RAT”, this is routine activities theory. This is used criminology and victimization theory that will then explain the reasons for a crime to be committed. The only problem is with cybercrime you don’t know the real reason why someone is doing these types of things to harm others organization or technology.With some challenges and concerns that happen come from this Is that we think installing a antivirus software would make nothing bad happen. According to the article, “Akdemir and Lawless (2020) found that the installation of antivirus software increased the risk for cybercrime victimization”. Another concern is that if we keep advancing in technology are we going to keep having more cybercrime?Malware infections happening? What can we do for this not to continue to happen so bad?Data utilized in this study derives from the Kaspersky Cyberthreat Real-Time Map.All models were estimated using SPSS 27.”This study sought to empirically investigate the relationship between malware infections, COVID-19 reported positive cases, closed non-essential businesses, and closed K-12 public schools in the United States”. There are tables showing information about all of these things. The main differences they have noticed is that physical crime has decreased at the beginning of this pandemic and cybercrime has increased significantly. The overall contribution of this study to society was breaking down why malware infections have increased more ever since COVID-19 has been in effect for the world.


Gero, S. L., Back, S., LaPrade, J., & Kim, J. (2021). An empirical study on cybercrime and COVID-19. International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence and Cybercrime, 4(2), 25-37. https://www.doi.org/ 10.52306/04020321CRBH5596

https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1104&context=ijcic