Social media crime: Clusters for a structural analysis

Ever since their coming into existence, social media have been impacting our communication behaviour and added new possibilities to it. Despite their numerous advantages, they are also increasingly becoming a breeding ground for criminal activity. In order to enhance law enforcement in that respect, a structured approach is required.

In a legal perspective the term social media crime refers to criminal activities against persons or groups of persons using or centrally integrating social media. A large group of involved actors, especially police and legal authorities, see themselves confronted with new challenges and terms resulting from the constant increase and the fast development of social media crime. However, until recently there was no structured investigation of relevant crime phenomena in social media either at national or international level. In order to develop appropriate preventive and reactive measures for this new field of crime, SYNYO GmbH worked in cooperation with the Austrian Federal Criminal Office and the University of Vienna. The consortium identified and collected real-life cases of social media crime and established a taxonomy in course of an in-depth analysis.  

Social media crime taxonomy

During the named analysis 15 phenomena could be made out and were clustered into four umbrella groups, which are displayed in the diagram.

The four clusters and their sub-categories are defined the following way:

Social hacking: The cluster includes phenomena that use social media for gathering information about targets, victims or potential connections. This can subsequently be used for various purposes. The different phenomena of this cluster differ in their type of data collection. Offenders use both legal and illegal methods.

• Social information gathering: The aim is to collect information and data about a victim or its environment in order to use this knowledge for further criminal activities. In many instances, social information gathering is carried out before the actual crime or for its preparation.
• Social intrusion: It defines the invasion of social media accounts in order to mine profile data, i.e. to make it usable for further purposes, like sending spam.
• Social spying: Attacks on social media users aiming at gaining information or infiltrating networked systems. It contains a strong hacking component and is carried out mainly by professional offenders.

Social scamming: The main focus of this cluster lies on classic fraud and blackmailing offences. For this cause, potential victims are mostly contacted by mass distribution via social media. The central aim of the technique is to obtain money as quickly as possible or to gather compromising information/photo or video material of the victims in very simple ways in order to extort money.

• Social spam scam: It is based on the pretence of an offer or a product. For acquiring this, users must share, like or comment contributions or pages. This results in an extremely effective and fast viral distribution of the spam source.
• Social 419 scam: This is classic payment fraud conducted via social media. Victims are prompted to take financial transactions by presenting false facts about pending consideration. However, the perpetrators never provide this consideration.
• Social money muling: People are attracted via social networks as couriers for money laundering. Abused money mules are victims of organised crime and are usually used only for small amounts (micro laundering).
• Social blackmailing: This names the specifically directed blackmailing of victims. In many cases the perpetrators threaten to publish compromising material (pictures/videos) if their demands are not met.

Social Insulting: This cluster includes phenomena which are aimed primarily at impairing the freedom, honour, physical or sexual integrity and/or security of an individual.

• Cyber mobbing/bullying: This means insulting, threatening, exposing or harassing other people with the help of modern means of communication – usually over a longer period of time. Group-dynamic processes generally play an important role in bullying.
• Cyber stalking: The phenomenon denotes spying, harassing and threatening of individuals in virtual space. Often there is also a connection to classical stalking the “real” world. Cyber stalking leads to a massive impairment of the victim’s quality of life through permanent and psychological pressure.
• Cyber grooming: This is the addressing of minors on the Internet with the aim of initiating sexual contacts.
• Sexting: It is basically understood as the exchange of your own intimate photos (or texts), whereby the sending of content is intended and desired. Sexting is particularly problematic if the exchanged contents are made accessible to other persons or groups of persons or if picture material represents minors.
• Happy Slapping: Persons who are generally not known to the offender are unfoundedly attacked. These attacks are filmed and then broadcast via social media.

Social Agitating: This cluster primarily refers to the use of social media for the dissemination of ideological content, the mobilisation of masses and the ensuing disturbance of public order/security. Usually, the phenomena are motivated by personal attitudes rather than by the pursuit of profit.

• Criminal hacktivism: Often these are merely defacements (changes) of websites in order to draw attention to socio-political problems. Nevertheless, criminal actions are taken. In some cases, data sets of organisations are also deliberately “stolen” in order to either publish them or force the organisations concerned to do so. In most cases, this is not based on monetary claims, but rather on claims of a non-material nature.
• Crime mobilisation: This is the assembly of persons intending to commit crimes such as property damage or theft. The appointment and mobilisation take place via social media.
• Cyber radicalisation: Ideological messages and propaganda are disseminated through the use of online media including social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These radical views can be both politically and religiously motivated.

While it is one way to categorise the criminal assaults by their actions, it is reasonable to additionally have a look at the role social media play within them. In fact, there are four forms of use: They can serve as –

1. information medium, i.e. social media are used to get information about a person/group/movement/organisation etc.
2. contact medium, i.e. social media are used to get in contact with a person/group/movement/organisation.
3. execution medium, i.e. social media are used to commit a crime;
4. dissemination medium, i.e. social media are used to distribute information in to as many people as possible.

The four clusters of social media crime match with specific forms of social media use. For social hacking they are mainly an information medium. In the case of social scamming they are used in two ways, as contact and as dissemination medium. Social insulting builds on social media as execution medium. And finally, social agitating uses them as dissemination medium.

Taxonomy in use

With the aid of the established taxonomy legal systems’ efficiency in terms of social media crime can be assessed. Consequently, it was for instance possible to show for Austrian law that many phenomena can already be legally tackled, while some fields need increased attention. In this case these are cyber bullying, hacking and abuse of identity or photo material.

Furthermore, the taxonomy represents an adaptable tool that is open to future developments in the field. It is constructed in such a flexible way that it can be altered and effectively used in an evolving discourse. The goal is to continue its application and head for deeper and international comparative analysis in order to get a better grip on social media criminality altogether.

Note: This article is based on Peter Leitner, Bernhard Jäger, Social Media Crime. In: KIRAS (2016). Wissenschaf(f)t Sicherheit, p. 181-187

References

[1] Leitner, P., Jäger, B. (2016). Social Media Crime: Strukturierte Anaylse kriminalpolizeilich relevanter Aktivitäten in sozialen Medien und Ableitung eines Methodenrasters. In: Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie, ed., KIRAS. Wissenschaf(f)t Sicherheit. Studienband 3. Vienna: Lindenau Productions, 181-187.

Keywords

Social media, social media crime, cyber criminality