Introducing IT and Crime

The advent of technology has brought about both positive and negative effects on the world. The
digital revolution has provided limitless opportunities such as easy access to information and
global communication. However, it has also opened the door to various risks, making it easier for
criminals to find unsuspecting victims and conduct crimes in cyberspace.

The term "cybercrime" encompasses a range of criminal activities involving the Internet,
specific software, and other networked systems. These activities may intentionally or
unintentionally cause harm to others or disrupt normal functioning, and they can be categorized
as computer crimes, high-tech crimes, digital crimes, electronic crimes, or technology-enabled
crimes. (Grabosky, 2017; Grabosky& Smith, 2017).

Globally, the incidence of ICT-related crimes has been increasing each year, making millions of
people vulnerable. Cybercrime poses threats to public safety, economic stability, and national
security. Perpetrators of cybercrimes are driven by various motivations, such as financial gain,
emotional instability, cultural factors, and a lack of adequate laws and penalties.

Research on cybercrimes is still limited, and there is a pressing need to assess trends in
cybersecurity. The study of cybercrime trends and patterns is particularly important for
developing countries. By understanding these trends, such countries can strengthen their legal
frameworks and enforcement efforts to prevent and combat cybercrimes effectively.

Cybercrimes have become a global problem. For instance, from 2006 to 2010 China had the
highest reported crimes in Asia, followed by Taiwan, South Korea, and India. Vietnam is ranked
17th among 20 countries with the highest number of internet users in the world (Internet World
Stats, 2018). In Vietnam, the most prominent computer-related crimes were hacking, and the
focus was mainly on intrusions. For example, there was a case where 500 million dongs were
extracted from a customer in 2018 (Symantec, 2018). In the Philippines, identity theft was the
most dominant cybercrime as there was a record 258 cases in 2019, and in two years, reports of
cybercrime increased with a record of 1.76 million reports of cybercrimes in the first three
months of 2021. There was an increase in child exploitation during the COVID-19 period since
children started online classes and thus became vulnerable to cyber criminals online.

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In the US, according to the US Internet Crime Complaints Centre, 2020 the three commonly
reported cybercrimes based on complaints reporting were: phishing and pharming (32.96%),
non-payment & non-delivery (14.87%), and extortion (10.48%). Phishing and pharming is the
fraudulent practice of alluring people to reveal personal information, such as passwords, login
details, and credit card numbers. Non-payment is where a buyer does not pay for received goods
or services, while non-delivery is failure to deliver goods or services. The most common form of
extortion was ransomware to access devices and files and then demand money payment
according to the Centre.

In Europe, the country that is the most vulnerable to cybercrime is Malta, followed closely by
Greece, Romania, and Slovakia. According to calculated cybercrime density, from 2020 to 2021,
the United Kingdom had the highest density with 40%, the US (13%) and Canada (7%). The
victims were mainly affected by phishing scams while investment fraud was the leading crime as
it had a total loss of $1.5 billion. In Australia, 67,500 cyber-crimes reports were recorded, the
dominant crimes recorded were exploitation and ransomware with a 15% increase between 2020
and 2021.

African Perspective Africa has the world's fastest-growing internet and phone networks and has a
high-volume use of mobile banking services. Africa has about 500 million internet users which
is, only 38 percent of the population and so offering huge potential for growth. Cybercrime
affects all countries, but weak networks and security mean African countries are particularly
vulnerable. This digital demand, coupled with a lack of cyber security policies and standards,
exposes digital spaces to significant risks. African countries are moving towards entrenching
digital infrastructure into all aspects of society including government, banks, businesses, and
critical infrastructure, thus establishing a strong cybersecurity framework is critical.

East Africa has the quickest developing economies on the African landmass, it also has one of
the quickest in the remainder of the world. There is an expansion of the computerized
framework, coordination of fiber-optic links, more grounded satellite associations, and quicker
broadband which has led to a blast as well as the quantity of individuals utilizing the web. On the
flip side, this has unintentionally made ready for digital wrongdoing to go after the amazing open
doors introduced in East Africa. The growth of cybercrime is detrimental to East Africa’s
economic and infrastructure development. The transnational element also provides opportunities

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for organized crime and terror groups to increase their operational capacity. For instance, in
Uganda, there has been a massive increase in cyber fraud from 62 cases in 2013 to 198 cases in
2018. In addition to that, in 2020 there was a total of 15b lost through cyber fraud. The bank lost
the most while mobile money users who conduct small transactions were also targeted by
hackers (Chege, 2021).

There has been an increase in the number of cyber-attacks in Ethiopia according to Ethiopia
Monitor, 2021. The Daily News reporter in the country recorded 3,400 reports in the first half of
the fiscal year 2021 which was the highest number of recorded crimes in the country. The main
areas that were targeted were; infrastructure and websites, accounting for (33%) and (25%)
respectively (Shumete Gizaw, 2022). In Tanzania, there were 7000 reports on cybercrimes in
2018, however, this number decreased to 3000 in the year 2020 the numbers were still high
(Magalla, 2018).

The African Union (AU) has been working to uphold legislation to combat cybercrime in Africa.
The African Union's Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection 2014 has been
endorsed by Rwanda with Uganda and Kenya slowly embracing it. In addition, there have been
acts that have come up in Eastern Africa to prevent cybercrimes such as the 2011 Computer
Misuse Act (Uganda), Cybercrimes and Computer Misuse Provisional Order 2021(S. Sudan),
Cybercrimes Act 2015(Tanzania), Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act 2018(Kenya).

Kenyan Perspective Cyber security in Kenya is governed by various provisions of law including
Article 31 of the Constitution of Kenya 2010, The Kenya Information and Communication Act
No.2 of 1998, the Computer Misuse and Cyber Crimes Act No. 5 of 2018, and the Data
Protection Act No. 24 of 2019. The Kenya Information and Communications Act provides that
cyber security refers to means of collecting the tools, policies, security concepts, guidelines,
security safeguards, risk management approaches, actions, best practices, assurance, and
technologies that can be used to protect the cyber technologies. The Computer Misuse and
Cybercrimes Act does not describe what cyber security entails however it lists some of the
cybercrimes. These include cybersquatting, cyber espionage, and phishing, however, the most
prominent cybercrimes in Kenya now are false publications where false news is publicized,
computer fraud, computer hacking, money transfer fraud, credit card fraud, and cyber terrorism,
and computer harassment.

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Cybercrime in Kenya has greatly increased over the recent years and has become a growing
problem affecting the security of the country. While the greater part of the assaults is designated
at large corporations - a larger part with the monetary muscle to support ransoms - medium-sized
organizations are not excluded all things considered. The danger has become ten times for
organizations during the pandemic as culprits strike-through hacking, phishing, and Ransomware
assaults. Kenya which is known as Silicon Savannah is home to a sh120 billion tech hub and
over 230 digital service provider start-up businesses. With this hearty data innovation framework
set up, Kenya remains an appealing business sector for cybercriminals.

According to business consulting firm Serianu in 2018, Kenya lost about Sh33.5 billion to
cybercriminals every year, an amount that has been increasing steadily (Serianu, 2018).
According to the communications authority of Kenya (CA), there were 38.8 million cyber threats
in three months to June 2021, a 37.3% jump from the 28.2 million cyber-criminal activities
identified in the first three months of the same year. In 2020, the number of cybercrimes reported
was nearly 140 million, with the most common one being malware which had 124 million
reports. National Kenya Computer Incident Response Team (National KE-CIRT) is likewise
answerable for the public coordination of network protection as well as Kenya's public resource
on digital protection matters. They received a total of 529 reports compared to 298 requests in
the previous period.