Empty Streets, Busy Internet: A Time-Series Analysis of Cybercrime and Fraud Trends During COVID-19

• Author: Nacho Díaz-Castaño,Asier Moneva,Fernando Miró-Llinares,David Buil-Gil,Steven Kemp
• Date: 01 November 2021
• Published date: 01 November 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/10439862211027986
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862211027986

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2021, Vol. 37(4) 480 –501

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862211027986

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Article

Empty Streets, Busy Internet:

A Time-Series Analysis of

Cybercrime and Fraud Trends

During COVID-19

Steven Kemp1,2,3, David Buil-Gil3,

Asier Moneva4,5, Fernando Miró-Llinares2,

and Nacho Díaz-Castaño2

Abstract

The unprecedented changes in routine activities brought about by COVID-19 and

the associated lockdown measures contributed to a reduction in opportunities for

predatory crimes in outdoor physical spaces, while people spent more time connected

to the internet, and opportunities for cybercrime and fraud increased. This article

applies time-series analysis to historical data on cybercrime and fraud reported to

Action Fraud in the United Kingdom to examine whether any potential increases

are beyond normal crime variability. Furthermore, the discrepancies between fraud

types and individual and organizational victims are analyzed. The results show that

while both total cybercrime and total fraud increased beyond predicted levels, the

changes in victimization were not homogeneous across fraud types and victims. The

implications of these findings on how changes in routine activities during COVID-19

influenced cybercrime and fraud opportunities are discussed in relation to policy,

practice, and academic debate.

Keywords

crime trends, coronavirus, ARIMA, cybersecurity, victims, crime statistics

1University of Girona, Spain

2Miguel Hernández University of Elche, Spain

3University of Manchester, UK

4Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), The Netherlands

5Center of Expertise Cyber Security, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands

Corresponding Author:

Steven Kemp, Faculty of Law, Carrer Universitat de Girona, 12, 17071 Girona, Spain.

Email: steven.kemp@udg.edu

1027986CCJXXX10.1177/10439862211027986Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeKemp et al.

research-article2021

Kemp et al. 481

Introduction

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, several sources warned of possible

increases in cybercrime and fraud (especially cyber-enabled frauds1). In March 2020,

Europol alerted about new ways in which cybercriminals were benefiting from the

pandemic and associated lockdown measures (Europol, 2020b), and in October 2020,

Europol’s (2020a) Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment stated that “COVID-

19 caused an amplification of existing [cybercrime] problems” (p. 6) and noted an

increase in fraud against businesses “as a result of the global outbreak of COVID-19”

(p. 47). Similarly, Interpol’s (2020) report entitled “Cybercrime: Covid-19 impact,”

published in August 2020, affirmed that there had been “a sharp increase in cyber-

criminal activities” (p. 4) related to the virus. As a preventive measure against such

threats, U.K. law enforcement agencies used Twitter to raise public awareness, devot-

ing 57.2% of their messages to fraud schemes and 16.9% to cybercrime problems

(Nikolovska et al., 2020).

From an opportunity perspective (Newman & Clarke, 2003), it seems obvious to

expect an increase in cybercrime and fraud when more people use the internet and

converge in cyberspace. However, both these umbrella categories encompass a very

diverse range of conducts (e.g., not all frauds are a form of cyber-enabled crime), and

it is unlikely that trends are identical for all types of cybercrime and fraud. Furthermore,

detected fluctuations may be very short term and may simply bounce back to the initial

trend, or they could even be within normal crime variability. In fact, literature on tra-

ditional street crime in the United States, such as serious assaults, indicates that the

relationship between lockdown measures and crime is not always as expected (Ashby,

2020), while preliminary analysis on cybercrime and COVID-19 in the United

Kingdom indicated that individual and organizational victims may not be affected in

the same manner (Buil-Gil et al., 2021b).

In this context, the main aim of this article is to provide further understanding of the

relationship between the changes in daily activities brought about by the COVID-19

pandemic and cybercrime and fraud in the United Kingdom. To this end, the article

begins by describing the changes in routine activities in the United Kingdom and how

these may have influenced cybercrime and fraud opportunities. Subsequently, a brief

overview of the existing literature on the relationship between crime and COVID-19

is provided. Next, the data and the methods are introduced. A detailed description of

the results comprises the penultimate section of the article. Finally, discussion and

conclusions are provided with regard to the implications of the findings for policy,

practice, and academic debate.

COVID-19 and Shifts in Crime Opportunities

COVID-19 and Routine Activities in the United Kingdom

The unprecedented rapid changes in routine activities brought about by COVID-19

and the associated lockdown measures have been evidenced around the globe. In the