Hi-Tech Crime CRIM30375

Why news outlets should think twice about republishing the New Zealand mosque shooter's livestream Colleen Murrell , Swinburne University of Technology Like so many times before with acts of mass violence in different parts of the world, news of shootings at two Christchurch mosques on Friday instantly ricocheted around the world via social media. When these incidents occur, online activity follows a predictable pattern as journalists and others try to learn the name of the perpetrator and any reason behind the killings. This time they did not have to wait long. In an appalling example of the latest technology, the gunman reportedly livestreamed his killings on Facebook. According to reports , the footage apparently showed a man moving through the interior of a mosque and shooting at his victims indiscriminately. Amplifying the spread of this kind of material can be harmful. Read more: Since Boston bombing, terrorists are using new social media to...

Comic explainer: what is lone-actor terrorism? Wes Mountain/The Conversation , CC BY-ND Wes Mountain , The Conversation Security services and governments around the world remain vigilant to the threat of lone-actor terrorists in our cities. But when there’s often no indication of an explicit intention or ideology, questions about mental health and with groups like Islamic State willing to encourage and claim responsibility for almost any attack , how do we define lone-actor terrorism? In this comic explainer, Raffaello Pantucci, Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Director of International Security Studies at RUSI , explains the theory behind lone-actor terrorism and what we know about lone actors’ effectiveness, motives and behaviours that could help us to better understand and disrupt future attacks. ...

Hackers are making personalised ransomware to target the most profitable and vulnerable Andrey Popov/Shutterstock Lena Connolly , University of Leeds and David Wall , University of Leeds Once a piece of ransomware has got hold of your valuable information, there is very little you can do to get it back other than accede to the attacker’s demands. Ransomware, a type of malware that holds a computer to ransom, has become particularly prevalent in the past few years and virtually unbreakable encryption has made it an even more powerful force. Ransomware is typically delivered by powerful botnets used to send out millions of malicious emails to randomly targeted victims. These aim to extort relatively small amounts of money (normally £300-£500, but more in recent times) from as many victims as possible. But according to police officers we have interviewed from UK cybercrime units, ransomware attacks are becoming increasingly targeted a...

Web 3.0: the decentralised web promises to make the internet free again Khakimullin Aleksandr/Shutterstock Edina Harbinja , Aston University and Vasileios Karagiannopoulos , University of Portsmouth Have you recently considered deleting your Facebook account, boycotting Amazon or trying to find an alternative to Google ? You wouldn’t be alone. The tech giants are invading our privacy , misusing our data, strangling economic growth and helping governments spy on us . Yet because these few companies own so many of the internet’s key services, it seems there is little people can do to avoid having to interact with them if they want to stay online. However, 30 years after the world wide web was created , a third generation of web technology might offer a way to change things. The DWeb , a new decentralised version of cyberspace, promises to enable better user control, more competition between internet firms and less dominance by the la...

YouTube's paedophile problem is only a small part of the internet's issue with child sexual abuse Evdokimov Maxim/Shutterstock Belinda Winder , Nottingham Trent University and Hany Farid , Dartmouth College YouTube has, yet again , failed to protect children online. Recent investigations by Wired and video blogger Matt Watson have alleged that paedophiles were using the site’s comments section to leave predatory messages on videos containing and uploaded by children, and to share links to child sexual abuse material. In response to the investigations – and the threat of an advertiser boycott – YouTube has now said it will disable comments on videos containing young children. But sadly, this is not an isolated incident. In January 2019 was alleged that Microsoft’s Bing search engine was surfacing and suggesting child sexual abuse material. And these kind of incidents are repeats of similar problems that have occurred over t...

India's WhatsApp election: political parties risk undermining democracy with technology Shutterstock/lidear21/AshTProductions/Dishant Shrivastava/Rawpixel Philippa Williams , Queen Mary University of London and Lipika Kamra , O.P. Jindal Global University India’s 2019 national elections are widely anticipated to be the “WhatsApp elections”. Against a backdrop of rapidly improving internet connectivity and rising smartphone use , the number of people using private messaging service WhatsApp has soared since its India launch in mid-2010 to more than 200m – more users than in any other democracy. And now the country’s political parties are moving to capitalise on this mass communication channel. But given WhatsApp has already been used to misinform voters in other elections and spread damaging “fake news” that has led to serious violence in India, there’s a danger this could also pose a threat to the democratic process. Keen to ex...