Geographic profiling for serial cybercrime investigation

Abstract

Today’s cybercrimes are much more difficult to detect and prosecute than traditional crimes. In the investigation of cybercrimes, law enforcement agencies follow similar techniques to traditional crimes that, however, have to be modified to meet the unique conditions and requirements of virtual space. This paper examines cybercrime profiling techniques prevalent today, and focuses on the feasibility of applying geographic profiling technique to cyber offenders. The primary assumption of the research is that for most types of cybercrime, the steps during the procedure of committing criminal act are not random. For example, the choice of the victim, the choice of crime location, similar characteristics, follow a certain logic, which could provide information about the offender’s crime. Testing the utility of a geographical profiling has been carried out on real cybercrime samples obtained by law enforcement agencies. This paper aims to apply the concept of geographic profiling to the issue of cybercrime that involve a physical world, targeting two types of cybercrimes: credit card skimming and spear phishing. Specially developed GeoCrime geographic profiling software designed to assist in the mapping, spatial and statistical analysis of cybercrime patterns was used. The results of the study have shown the possibility of applying geographic profiling to certain types of cybercrimes and under the certain conditions. The importance of geographic profiling is also emphasized, especially in situations where little is known about the offender, such as in cybercrime, where offenders use the Internet to hide their identities and activities.