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This study aims to explore the nature and impacts of cybercrime in the Zimbabwean retail sector and evaluate the effectiveness of the current measures to deal with cybercrime.

This study adopted a mixed research design on a sample of 38 retail players in a small mining town, Bindura, who were selected using stratified random and purposive sampling techniques. Data were collected through a mainly closed-ended questionnaire and in-depth interview guide. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse quantitative data, whereas summative content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data.

Virus dissemination, hacking and card fraud were identified as the major forms of cybercrime prevalent in the retail sector. Additional security costs, loss of sensitive data and direct financial losses were found to be the major impacts posed by cybercrime on retail sector. It was also established that the current internal measures and policing efforts to fight cybercrime in the retail sector were ineffective.

This study provides context-specific information on the scourge of cybercrime in a developing third world country that has of late been characterised by a myriad of other socioeconomic challenges. Although similar studies have been conducted in other parts of the globe, there has been a dearth of literature on retail sector cybercrime in Zimbabwe. This study also interrogates the Zimbabwean retail sector’s preparedness in dealing with this contemporary threat.

This study aims to examine the threats posed by cybercrimes toward the quest for achieving a reliable digital economy and to identify practical strategies for countering the crime.

A qualitative phenomenological paradigm was used as the methodology. Both primary and secondary sources were consulted for data collection. A thematic analytical interpretation was used for data analysis.

This study discovered that Nigeria is a leverage environment for using digital economy as a means of diversifying the economy owing to population bulge, and an increase patronage of internet and digital space but the threats of cyberfraudsters is ostracising a substantial number from using it which is decreasing the performance of the digital economy.

The research is limited by the scarcity of resources to widen the horizon of the study particularly the fieldwork and the rampant incidences of cybercrime in Nigeria which poses a difficult task for studying the phenomenon. In addition, this study is constrained by the confidentiality in releasing data owing to the sensitivity of the subject of study and its relationship to national security.

This study presents some suggestions that are plausible in countering the crimes and enhancing the digital economy in Nigeria through effective surveillance, massive information and communication technology (ICT) awareness creation for users and severe penitent sanctions for cybercriminals will help in securing digital spaces.

This study has social implications including the suggestion for simplifying digital transactions that will save time, increases economic activities and passive multiple stream income for Nigerians and ease of doing business with less risk of robbery and other cumbersome tasks.

This study has originality value because after the survey of the existing literature, a field work is conducted to have the views of experts on the subject of study which adds value to the subject and originality of the findings.

Various organizational landscapes have evolved to improve their business processes, increase production speed and reduce the cost of distribution and have integrated their Internet with small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) and third-party vendors to improve business growth and increase global market share, including changing organizational requirements and business process collaborations. Benefits include a reduction in the cost of production, online services, online payments, product distribution channels and delivery in a supply chain environment. However, the integration has led to an exponential increase in cybercrimes, with adversaries using various attack methods to penetrate and exploit the organizational network. Thus, identifying the attack vectors in the event of cyberattacks is very important in mitigating cybercrimes effectively and has become inevitable. However, the invincibility nature of cybercrimes makes it challenging to detect and predict the threat probabilities and the cascading impact in an evolving organization landscape leading to malware, ransomware, data theft and denial of service attacks, among others. The paper explores the cybercrime threat landscape, considers the impact of the attacks and identifies mitigating circumstances to improve security controls in an evolving organizational landscape.

The approach follows two main cybercrime framework design principles that focus on existing attack detection phases and proposes a cybercrime mitigation framework (CCMF) that uses detect, assess, analyze, evaluate and respond phases and subphases to reduce the attack surface. The methods and implementation processes were derived by identifying an organizational goal, attack vectors, threat landscape, identification of attacks and models and validation of framework standards to improve security. The novelty contribution of this paper is threefold: first, the authors explore the existing threat landscapes, various cybercrimes, models and the methods that adversaries are deploying on organizations. Second, the authors propose a threat model required for mitigating the risk factors. Finally, the authors recommend control mechanisms in line with security standards to improve security.

The results show that cybercrimes can be mitigated using a CCMF to detect, assess, analyze, evaluate and respond to cybercrimes to improve security in an evolving organizational threat landscape.

The paper does not consider the organizational size between large organizations and SMEs. The challenges facing the evolving organizational threat landscape include vulnerabilities brought about by the integrations of various network nodes. Factor influencing these vulnerabilities includes inadequate threat intelligence gathering, a lack of third-party auditing and inadequate control mechanisms leading to various manipulations, exploitations, exfiltration and obfuscations.

Attack methods are applied to a case study for the implementation to evaluate the model based on the design principles. Inadequate cyber threat intelligence (CTI) gathering, inadequate attack modeling and security misconfigurations are some of the key factors leading to practical implications in mitigating cybercrimes.

There are no social implications; however, cybercrimes have severe consequences for organizations and third-party vendors that integrate their network systems, leading to legal and reputational damage.

The paper’s originality considers mitigating cybercrimes in an evolving organization landscape that requires strategic, tactical and operational management imperative using the proposed framework phases, including detect, assess, analyze, evaluate and respond phases and subphases to reduce the attack surface, which is currently inadequate.

The purpose of this paper is to review the effect of cybercrime in the banking sector.

This study uses a survey of literature and the balanced scorecard (BSC) to analyse the effect of cybercrime on the banking sector.

The literature reviewed confirms an increasing wave of cybercrime that has impacted negatively on the good will and economic growth of financial institutions, indirectly through loss of trust in the digital infrastructure or directly through fraud and extortion in both developing and developed countries.

This study is limited to the application of BSC to analyse the effect of cybercrime in the banking sector only.

To avert on going massive losses owing to cybercrime, the authors quest for development of an alert system that can create the awareness of both the banks and the customers by effectively implementing and integrating big data technology into their system to mitigate the negative impacts of cybercrime.

The novelty of this study lies in the fact that this study uses the BSC for the analysis of cybercrime in the banking sector, a problem that has not been sufficiently highlighted in the existing literature.

The purpose of this study is to develop the theorisation of cybercrime in the context of the pandemic, and to sketch out a vision of how law enforcement might respond to a transformed landscape of online crime and offending.

This conceptual paper draws on empirical evidence from a range of sources (including official statistics) and the existing research literature, and revisits routine activities theory to illuminate the way that cybercrime patterns are being transformed by the pandemic.

The pandemic is reshaping the routine activities of societies en masse, leading to changes in the ecology of risk and opportunity for cybercrime. There is evidence of a large increase in the prevalence of cybercrime as a result, yet much of this has a paradoxically “local” character.

The authors identify specific practical implications for law enforcement, namely, that the role of local police in policing cybercrime should be re-envisioned, with a democratic, community-oriented approach at its heart.

The theoretical perspective outlined is a novel and critical development of a well-established framework, opening up new paths to the theorisation of cybercrime and cybercrime policing. The authors’ suggestions for practitioners have the potential for direct impact, both at the level of practice and in terms of broader imaginaries and organisation of police and policing.

The purpose of this study is to use a decision support model based on the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Pareto analysis (PA) for ranking the impact of different kinds of cybercrime in organisations in the financial sector to support decisions on cybercrime mitigation.

From a structured questionnaire to the staff of 17 licensed banks in South Africa in charge of management, administration and operations, the perceived effect of cybercrime on the organisation’s goals, namely, organisation’s profitability, goodwill, customers’ satisfaction and risk management was derived. The pairwise comparison of the organisation’s goals and identified forms of cybercrime was done using the AHP.

The results obtained indicate that there was a consensus (100% of the answers) that the effect of cybercrime has negatively impacted the organisation’s objectives profitability and goodwill. Also, still 95.23% of the respondents agreed that the effect of cybercrime has negatively impacted the level of customers’ satisfaction, while only 7.15% saw an impact on the organisation’s risk management processes. Using these results in the AHP, analysis delivers a hierarchical order about the relevance of prevalent forms of cybercrime for the organisation´s cybercrime mitigation. The PA further shows the magnitude of the forms of cybercrime relative to each other.

Hence, this study provides a decision support framework for organisational management in the quest to explore the impact of cyber fraud. It can serve as a practical guided approach for the application of AHP analysis for the existing and emerging forms of cybercrime.

The novelty of this study lies in the fact that the combination of the AHP and PA to support solving a multi-criteria decision problem relating to the prevalence of cybercrime has not been sufficiently highlighted by the existing literature.

The study aims to determine the cybercrime awareness among secondary school students with reference to their gender and school management type.

For the purpose, a sample of 100 students from secondary schools situated in Lucknow city, state of Uttar Pradesh, India was selected. To obtain initial data from the respondents and to determine the cybercrime awareness categories a five-point Likert type cybercrime awareness rating scale exclusively constructed to fulfil the purpose of this study was used to determine the cybercrime awareness in five categories viz; excellent, high, above average, average, below average and low cybercrime awareness. Further, “t” test was used to analyse the difference between the means of groups.

Results revealed that gender (male and female) and type of school management (government and self-finance) are not significant predictors of cybercrime awareness among secondary school students.

This study is limited to the government and self-finance English medium schools of Lucknow city, state of Uttar Pradesh, India.

Policymakers, various societies involved in investigating cyber behavior/child computer interaction/safer communities, etc. should consider that school management is not a predictor of cybercrime along with gender and can look for other possible visible and latent factors affecting cybercrime awareness among students while formulating a policy or designing a course/prevention program for secondary school students.

School administration should consider the existing gender and school management roles of the present scenario to make effective policies for the students and providing them effective cybercrime prevention programs and activities. Also, parents can adequately understand the role of school management type and gender of their belongings to understand their cybercrime awareness and take necessary measures accordingly.

The paper is focused on the cybercrime awareness of secondary school students and how their gender and school management type affects their cybercrime awareness. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is first of its kind which investigates the role of school management in cybercrime awareness of the students. As the education sector is depending more and more on the cyber world, this paper is of the great significance for the safety of education sector, organizations and communities involved in making the policies and designing the curriculum to avoid students being a victim of cybercrime and to make education sector a safer community.

Cybercrime is a prevalent and serious threat to publicly traded companies. Defending company information systems from cybercrime is one of the most important aspects of technology management. Cybercrime often not only results in stolen assets and lost business but also damages a company’s reputation, which in turn may affect the company’s stock market value. This is a serious concern to company managers, financial analysts, investors and creditors. This paper aims to examine the impact of cybercrime on stock prices of a sample of publicly traded companies.

Financial data were gathered on companies that were reported in news stories as victims of cybercrime. The market price of the company’s stock was recorded for several days before the news report and several days after. The percentage change in the stock price was compared to the change in the Dow Jones Industrial average to determine whether the stock price increased or decreased along with the rest of the market.

Stock prices were negatively affected in all time periods examined, significantly so in one period.

This paper describes cases concerning cybercrime, thereby bringing attention to the value of cybersecurity in protecting computers, identity and transactions. Cyber security is necessary to avoid becoming a victim of cybercrime. Specific security improvements and preventive measures are provided within the paper. Preventive measures are generally less costly than repairs after a cybercrime.

This is an original manuscript that adds to the literature regarding cybercrime and preventive measures.

Open innovation is important for technology firms as they can use freely available resources to source creative and innovative ideas. Despite the usefulness of open innovation for technological advancements, few studies have focused on the role of cybercrime in affecting an organizations strategic direction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of open innovation on cybercrime in technology firms.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted on technology firms to understand the role of open innovation in terms of technology scouting, horizontal collaboration and vertical collaboration on cybercrime activity.

The study found that there is a dilemma most technology firm’s face in having an open innovation strategy and how to manage cybercrime. This means that a coopetition strategy is utilized that helps to not only balance the need to have open innovation but also protect intellectual property.

The study has implications for emerging technology innovations that not only need to have cyber security but also harness the use of Big Data.

Managers of technology firms need to encourage open innovation as a strategy but manage the cybercrime that comes from sharing too much information in an online context.

This paper is one of the first to link open innovation strategy to cybercrime activity in technology firms. Thus, it contributes to the literature on open innovation and cyber theft and security.

Police-reported incidents of cybercrime appear to vary dramatically across Canadian municipal police services. This paper explores cybercrime reporting by police services in eight of Canada's largest municipalities, assessing (1) variation over time; (2) variation across jurisdictions; and (3) correlates of reporting volumes.

Data was collected from a combination of national Uniform Crime Report statistics and annual reports by police services. Two repeated one-way ANOVA tests and a Pearson's r correlation matrix were used to assess variation and correlation.

Findings suggest that police-reported cybercrime varies significantly across jurisdictions but not over time. Moreover, negative relationships were observed between police-reported cybercrime incidents per 100,000 residents and calls for service per 100,000, as well as number of sworn officers per 100,000.

The study assessed a small sample of cities (N = 8) providing 32 data points, which inhibited robust multivariate analyses. Data also strictly represents calls to police services, therefore excluding alternative resolutions such as public–private interventions.

Canadian provincial and federal governments should consider engaging in high-level talks to harmonize cybercrime reporting strategies within frontline policing. This will mitigate disparity and provide more accurate representations of cybercrime for future policy development. Additionally, services should revisit internal policies and procedures, as it appears that cybercrime is deprioritized in high call volume situations.

This paper introduces previously unreported data about police-reported cybercrime incidents in Canada. Furthermore, it adds quantitative evidence to support previous qualitative studies on police responses to cybercrime.