Covid-19 Pandemic and Online Fraud: Malaysian Experience

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to examine how the Covid-19 outbreak has affected online fraud in Malaysia. In particular, this study aims to provide a conceptual discussion as well as a comparison analysis of online fraud patterns prior to and during the Covid-19 outbreak. This study uses police recorded online fraud data to provide comparison between pre and during the Covid-19 pandemic. This study period is 2018-2019 and 2020-2021. Results indicate that most online fraud categories increased dramatically during the Covid-19 outbreak. In particular, the number of online frauds associated with e-commerce and online investment, which are the most common online fraud categories in Malaysia, have seen the largest increasing rates between the two periods. The findings of this study provide preliminary evidences on the increasing of online fraud in the country and can motivate researcher to investigate on the factors that affect such frauds.