Effects of Cyber Crime on the Social Media

Effects of Cyber Crime on the Social Media

In the current world, technology use has become an essential part of life since it connects information and people from all works of life all over the globe. Cyber Crime outlined as the crime which uses the computer as a tool to perform or commit a crime or offense. On the other hand, social media is an electronic exchange of data such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even WhatsApp. For cybercrime to happen, a network and a computer must be available. According to the ICT report of 2017, it noted that there had been an 80% rise in cybercrime. Every year between the years 2013 and 2017. Therefore, this research study attempts to discuss the common cybercrimes and its impact on social media.

Research indicates that cybercrime has increased so much in the world due to fast changes in technology. However, most governments, intelligence units, and organizations have started to respond to finding causes of increased cybercrime and ways to prevent its roots. The government of Kenya signed into law the computer and cybercrime act in the year 2018 intended to offer a platform for useful and timely investigation, detection, and prosecution of those involved in computer crimes. Some of those crimes in the act including but not limited to; online social media provocation, the publication of fake news, distribution of underage pornography, unauthorized access to someone’s data. Those found committing these crimes and other crimes described in the act will face the full force of the law.

Furthermore, having weak systems in the organization is also considered a significant cause of cybercrime since inadequate security systems are vulnerable to internal and external attacks. Previous research shows that people and organizations attacked daily. Still, most of them do not want to come out and admit being bombarded, thus promoting and giving attacks confidence since these attacks go unnoticed by the public. The reason organizations or individuals do not want to reveal the attack is because they want to protect the image and brand of the organization or individual image. According to the 2018 report by Hillary Orinda on the National bank of Kenya’s cyber-attack, the bank lost millions of money due to cyber-attack. Still, the bank reported that they had managed to stop the multimillion theft, which was not the case.

Moreover, advancement in technology is causing more attacks daily, thus making technology as the most significant contributor of cybercrime. Cyber-bullying is another major cybercrime experienced on social media. A previous study found that 25% of the patients experienced cyber-bullying, which had associated with depression and anger among the patients and youths. Attackers steal private data, which includes usernames and passwords of individuals, then have access to private data and information, which they will then share it online without the person attacked permission. Due to the nature of delicate details shared, some victims may even decide to commit suicide since their privacy is compromised

Research indicates that a lack of cybersecurity policies or weak policies is also a cause of cybercrime. If an organization has not formulated good policies on cybersecurity will make an organization more vulnerable to these cybercrimes. ICT systems such as computers, networks, switches, routers, and emails need to protect against the attacks by the implementation of the firewalls. ICT personnel is always at the risk of losing their jobs in the event an attack happens to the organization since the employer will term them as incompetent. Suggestions propose that organizations implement cybersecurity laws and have secure networking infrastructure to reduce the attack and only make sure that only authorized people are allowed to have access to the organization network.

Besides, social media has become part of life. Nowadays, internet users have more than one social media account. Identity theft is a significant threat to various social media users. For one to open an account on social media, they have to provide their details like name, phone number, and email. Some even require your bank account number, especially selling sites where one has to purchase items that are required to provide their credit card details. Some of this information is used by attackers to gain access to individual confidential data.

In conclusion, cybercrime has become a threat to many individuals and organizations. To protect individuals and organizations from falling victims of the attacks, they need to implement strong cyber laws to make it easy to prosecute the attackers. The organization also needs the frequent update of their passwords, ensure that the software is up to date and do patching. Also, training of staff is critical and encouraging them to avoid auto-saving of their passwords to reduce cybercrime attacks just in case someone gets access to their computers. There is a need for ICT personnel to do more research and study ways to secure their organization systems.