Cybercrimes, rendered criminal activities involving computers, networks and digital devices, are increasing across the world year by year. Cybercrimes cross national borders and spread rapidly. There were over 4.7 million reports of cybercrimes in the world in 2022 in comparison to 2010. Along with organizations, many persons are the victims of cybercrimes — a serious threat and an extension of the existing criminal behaviors —in Asia, Europe and other regions. It is pertinently notable that criminals take the advantage of the digitally connected world and commit cybercrimes. Individuals and/or small groups of people with little technical knowledge and highly organized criminal groups — both local and transnational — with relatively talented developers and specialists are engaged in cybercrimes in many countries.
The most common cybercrimes that are committed for financial gain, political purpose or personal cause (including the cultivation of distrust in organizations or governments) include identity theft (stealing credit card information, obtaining Social Security numbers and stealing bank account information), hacking or attempted hacking of email and social media accounts, hacking into government websites, intellectual property theft, romance scam, bullying and sexual harassment. One of the most common forms of cybercrime is phishing, a commonly used tactic of identity theft or stealing sensitive personal information mostly through sending an email or a text message often with malicious links or attachments. Information of persons and organizations is stolen by cybercriminals. Along with identity theft, cyber harassment and bullying have notably increased over social media in many countries recently. According to available sources, Facebook removed 8.2 million items of content on bullying and harassment in the second quarter of 2022.
Despite increased efforts to prevent cybercrimes, the economic cost of which was equivalent to around $7 trillion in 2022 and is expected to rise to $10.5 trillion by 2025, they are on the rise across the world. This is because of security policy driven, legal and other causes including a lack of adequate cyber security measures, limited policy efforts and a lack of legal steps. Notably, many organizations do not have a cybersecurity policy and/or robust security framework. A lack of legal efforts to bring cybercriminals to justice is present in many countries. Some sorts of cyber crimes are also patronized by states. Legislative challenges — driven by cybercriminals’ capacity to attack outside of their jurisdiction — are an important cause of inadequate legislative action.
Cybercrimes need to be prevented across the world. For this, efforts need to be strengthened. While strong cyber security measures are imperative to prevent cybercrimes, a close collaboration between public and private partners is essential for fighting cybercrimes. Also, increasing the capacity of countries is imperative to prevent, detect, investigate and disrupt cybercrimes. The development and implementation of cyber security policy is important to successfully prevent cybercrimes. Legal steps are also imperative to fight cyber crimes including bullying and sexual harassment successfully in many countries. But awareness of cyber security threats and certain cyber crimes including harassment and bullying is crucial. A transnational collaboration may also be helpful to prevent cybercrimes globally.
Amir M Sayem
Chief Editor
Dhaka Opinion Magazine
