Question

cyber crime

Should activities that are carried out over social media be technically consider "cyber crimes?" If so, what criteria should we assign to social media activities that cross the line?

In what ways can law enforcement make positive use of social media? Provide a real-world example if you can.

Answer 1

With nearly 4billion social media users in the world and the percentage of users increasing every year by almost 300%, social media usage has been one of the biggest concern of the cyber world. There are huge number of cyber crime cases involving social media that are being reported. However, a large number of social media activities are still not being reported just because we yet have not reached at a consciousness to address this as cyber crime.

Let us discuss some important criteria based on which we should assign a cross line for social media to check if it comes under the preview of cyber crime or not:

1) profile hacking- stealing someone's information by intriguing into one's profile without permission is known as profile hacking. This can happen if one login from an unauthenticated device or shares one's critical information like password or the privacy question or forgets to log out from a device after social media usage, etc

2) reconnaissance- this means creating fake profiles. It can be done through phishing. This brings great damage to the accused.

3) link baiting- this means directing user to a certain number of pages when they click on a particular link to steal some of their critical information or to spam their profile.

4) weaponization of social media- this means creating fake connections to establish credibility among a networking site.

5) DDoS attacks against official pages- this means distributed denial of service against company pages over social media usage to block it's marketing and credibility.

6) social engineering- this means chanting the access points for a social media or to slow down the run time of a social media for few minutes which impacts eCommerce and businesses adversely.

7) cyber bullying- this involves abusing the victim emotionally, physically or financially or in all ways.

8) offer and shopping scams- this means giving fake information over shopping offers to customers to steal their information.

9) romance and dating scams- this means abusing a victim by luring into love and blackmailing afterwards for money or any other need of the abuser.

10) malicious bots- to spam a social media.

Law makers need to be wary of the serious consequences that social media exerts on it's users. Social media has been accessed of creating fake news in US polls before the elections. Further, in a country like China which is quite strict on keeping an eye on social media filters, social media influenced major polls. Social media giants are being used at a larger extent today as marketing tools as well as connecting tools. Despite various rules and regulations, cases of cyber crime due to social media activity is increasing. Law makers need to be more strict and bring more standards on credibility and security of users on social media so that social media giants do take their responsibility of protecting the sentiments of its users in full consciousness.

There are many cases involving social media as cyber crime that has completely changed the lives of families forever.

There are several cases of dating frauds when the victim is lured to send nudes or share critical information and is then blackmailed brutally. Even popular celebrities too have not been out touched with social media cyber crime. There are cases of money laundering and theft due to frauds involving eCommerce sites through social media or because of link baiting.

Even though social media is coming with strictier policies to make data privacy intact for users, law makers need to ensure that social media accusers are treated with equal punishment as for any other crime. Moreover, law makers should come up with more awareness programs and making people be more tech savvy to eliminate the risks associated.