INTRODUCTION
Proliferation and advancement of the cybercrime era have confronted legal experts and scholars with a myriad of challenges, the least of which are the jurisprudential and doctrinal tensions in the principles of law generally, and criminal law in particular. For many centuries, legal research has been using the black-letter (a.k.a. doctrinal) approach to advance its theoretical and jurisprudential postulates. However, the complexity of the cybercrime phenomenon, with its social, economic, technological, and legal ramifications, necessitates robust and flexible research approaches that are capable of capturing the diversified dimensions of the phenomenon.1 The specific characteristics and attributes of cybercrime are among the many factors that make traditional legal research approaches archaic and unsuitable for use in cybercrime research.2 The technologically sophisticated nature of cybercrimes, their anonymity features, and trans-border dimensions are but some of the challenges that cybercrime researchers face.
A central theme that runs across the discourse that follows is that the best way to understand the structural specificity of the cybercrime phenomenon is to analyse and interpret it within the context of technological, societal, and legal dynamism.3 Most often, research in cybercrime involves technical investigations to gather evidence, assessing the impact of certain types of online criminal behaviours, evaluating law enforcement practices, and analysing statistical patterns and trends.4 As such, choosing the right methodological approach for a cybercrime research project becomes of paramount importance, especially when the validity of the research findings or the reliability of the knowledge generated is taken into consideration.5 Although this paper aims to fill a methodological gap in the approaches to cybercrime research, its primary significance lies in showing that legal research is no longer considered “an isolated island” among social sciences. Legal research is in the mainstream of social sciences scholarship. As a corollary, the general debate on legal methodology is enriched, and its epistemological foundations are consolidated.
CONVENTIONAL LEGAL RESEARCH: GENERAL NOTES
The above introductory statements reveal that cybercrime poses significant challenges for researchers who try to understand its multifaceted nature: its causes, social, economic, and legal impacts. The fact that the overwhelming majority of legal research utilises doctrinal (or black-letter) approaches is the point of departure in the discussion that follows. From a pure theoretical research perspective, there are two cardinal rules. First, the research question dictates the research method; and secondly, no single research method is perfect or flawless.6 Every research method has advantages and disadvantages, and it is therefore the sagacity of the individual researchers to weigh those advantages and disadvantages and, depending on the context of their research, determine the suitable research approach.7 The black-letter legal research approach – and by its very basic nature – is formalistic and overly narrow; as it normally and tangentially considers the social, economic, and technological aspects of crime. The eminent criminal law scholars Simester and Smith opine that it is erroneous to assume that criminal law scholarship can rely only on the back-letter research approaches.8
Other early social theorists, such as Durkheim, Max Weber, Niklas Luhmann, and Jurgen Habermas, have drawn attention to the importance of deploying interdisciplinary research approaches when studying social problems such as crime and deviance. In legal studies generally, and in cybercrime in particular, the use of multidisciplinary research approaches is deemed to be appropriate.9 The value of the interdisciplinary research approaches is that it allows researchers to interpret various facets of the cybercrime phenomenon using the intellectual and methodological lenses of different disciplines. In other words, interdisciplinary research approaches ensure the intellectual conversation and dialogue between scholars from different knowledge backgrounds and hence allow for cross-fertilisation of ideas.10 This last point brings to the surface the longstanding debate on the social sciences of the practicality of the epistemological positions of the interpretivism school of thought and the positivist traditions of generating knowledge. Although each of these schools of thought has its own tenets and justification for explaining how knowledge is generated, they complement each other in cybercrime research. If they are combined in a single research endeavour, these two approaches add breadth (through the positivism postulates) and depth (through the interpretivism postulates) to the outcome of the research endeavour.11
Within the context of this epistemological debate, it is essential to say a few words about the distinction between “methods” and “methodologies,” as these two terms are loosely used in research circles and lack a precise definitional orientation.12 While methods typically denote an empirical research orientation, methodologies carry epistemological and philosophical connotations. To put it explicitly, methods are the specific techniques of data collection and the precise procedure followed in interpreting and analysing that data. A methodology, on the other hand, is the general theoretical and philosophical framework within which a research endeavour will be carried out. A methodology shows how a research project relates to a specific domain of knowledge and the epistemological foundations of generating knowledge in that domain.
CYBERCRIME RESEARCH CONTEXT
Cybercrimes normally take place in two different contexts: the technical context and the behavioural one. Although it is theoretically possible to distinguish between these two contexts, in reality, they overlap. Ostensibly, the research contexts of cybercrime are unique and differ widely from the contexts of terrestrial crimes. Lavorgna and Holt observe that “The absence of consensus regarding online methodologies and ethical standards is an issue that severely complicates academic research in the cybercrime arena.” These researchers continue to assert that “The guidelines used in traditional research methods may be inadequate to respond to the challenges and possibilities presented by online research, especially in a sensitive area such as cybercrimes.”13 However, on the same line of argument, Cortina et al. opine that research in cybercrime usually focuses on the three main domains of cybercrime and victimisation, psychological aspects and human behaviour, and machine learning and data mining.14
With the advancement of the techniques and methods of machine learning (ML), transfer learning (TL), and deep learning (DL), massive data became available for researchers in various types of cybercrimes. Availability of such massive data, though it adds burdens to researchers in terms of handling and analysing the data, opens up opportunities for comparison and validation.15 The previously held assumptions of data-constrained research are no longer arguable. It is, therefore, possible to research and analyse patterns of online criminal activities to articulate plausible and data-based theoretical frameworks that give insights into the very nature of the various types of cybercrimes. Such frameworks are also helpful in predicting the locations in which cybercrimes may take place and the type of victims that might be targeted by cybercriminals. The conventional research approaches in criminology and sociology are based on hypothesis and theory-driven methodological approaches. Because of the connection between these disciplines and cybercrime, the research approaches in cybercrime are largely influenced by the research approaches of the aforementioned fields.16
The availability of mega and big databases made it difficult to use these conventional methodological approaches in cybercrime research. This is mainly because of two critical characteristics of such a data type. These two characteristics are velocity and variety. In simple terms, velocity refers to the fact that cybercrime data are often of a real-time nature and capturing such data in real-time is extremely difficult because of the technical sophistication used by cybercriminals in disguising traces that may lead to their identification. Variety, on the other hand, refers to the fact that the data itself might come in different formats, such as videos, audio, texts, numbers, and images.17 Additionally, it might also be difficult to use sampling techniques in situations of big data. In the rare instances in which a sampling technique is used, ‘where N = All’ is normally observed.18 Although this is statistically problematic, its operational inconveniences might not be ignored.
The newly emerging trends of platform-based cybercrime research are gaining momentum in cybercrime scholarship. Increasingly, scholars and researchers in cybercrime are adopting interdisciplinary research approaches and integrating research designs that incorporate online social platforms.19 Developers and operators of these platforms are increasingly sophisticating and developing the functional capabilities of these platforms. As alluded to before, cybercriminals are using these capabilities to perpetrate their criminal activities and exploit these platforms to their benefit. For example, some platforms are specialised in creating malicious software while others are dedicated to data leaks and execution of cyberattacks. Such arrangements have not only broadened the scope of cybercrime research, but it added robustness and rigidity to the research endeavours.20
In essence, the platform-based research strives to study cybercrime activities directly in their actual environments where they initially take place. These environments include social media platforms, marketplaces, discussion forums, and messaging applications. These platforms serve as first-hand data sources that enable researchers to instantly observe criminal behaviours and evaluate the criminal scenes, together with their technical aspects. In such circumstances, researchers have the opportunity to interact with criminals on the dark-net forums and other platforms such as Discord, Twitter, Facebook, and Telegram on a real-time basis. In these situations, researchers may opt to create anonymous identities and identify themselves as covert participants in those platforms.21
Researchers also use tools such “Wireshark” and TCPdump to analyse network traffic and gauge suspicious online activities. Conceivably, most criminal activities in cyberspace use high levels of anonymity, and criminal groups in particular may use advanced layers of anonymity and virtual private networks (VPNs) to perpetuate their notorious activities. Despite these arrangements, cybercrime researchers might use various available strategies to study criminal behaviours on a real-time basis. Under-covered access strategies and Tor browsing are among the most notable strategies in this regard.22 Other strategies include web crawlers, natural language processing (NLP), and application programming interfaces (APIs). These strategies are very useful when the focus of a research project is understanding or explaining how malicious software spreads across virtual networks, tracking scams, disseminating misinformation, tracing phishing attempts, and recognising how cybercriminals lure their victims in virtual environments. Cybercrime researchers rely on locating IP addresses, server logs, and online communications to collect their data for analysis of online criminal behaviours.
METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES IN CYBERCRIME RESEARCH
A quick critical analysis of the literature on cybercrime research reveals a number of challenges and methodological gaps. The challenges associated with cybercrime research can be looked at in a form of continuum. At one end of the continuum lies the technical aspects of cybercrime and the cybersecurity issues related to them. Researchers who study cybercrime from this technical perspective are vulnerable to missing or ignoring the behavioural dimensions of cybercrime.23 Similarly, on the other end of the continuum lie interactive or behavioural facets of cybercrime, and the researchers who venture to study cybercrimes from this perspective are prone to overlooking the technical aspects of cybercrimes. As such, choosing the appropriate methodological research approach is detrimental to the success, validity, and reliability of a research endeavour.24
Researchers often classify cybercrimes into the broad categories of computer-dependent and computer-enabled crimes. The first category refers to those crimes which we can’t imagine their occurrence without the availability or use of computers, the internet, or digital devices.25 These types of crimes are exemplified by hacking, ransomware attacks, distributed denial of service (DDoS), and data interference. The computer-enabled cybercrimes, on the other hand, are conventional crimes in which computers, the internet, and digital devices are used to facilitate the commission of those crimes. This type of crime is exemplified by cyber-harassment, cyber-pornography, cyber-fraud, and cyber-identity theft.
From the legal and prosecutorial perspective, each one of the two broad types of cybercrimes posits its specific and distinct research challenges. The theoretical frameworks that strive to explain and analyse the cybercrime phenomenon are rooted in criminological, sociological, economic, and behavioural domains.26 Ostensibly, these domains have their own research approaches that largely influence research in cybercrime. The theoretical frameworks of the routine activity theory, the rational choice theory, the social learning theory, and Eysenck’s personality theory, for example, give differing perspectives on the causes and related aspects of the phenomenon of cybercrime.27 As such, these theoretical frameworks influence to a large extent the methodological approaches of cybercrime research.28
Nevertheless, the theoretical frameworks alluded to above are often poorly aligned with the specificities of anonymity, automation, platform-based, and global dimensions of the cybercrime environments. Apparently, one of the daunting tasks that often faces cybercrime researchers is the trans-border nature of cybercrime. The offenders, victims, and the technological infrastructures used in the commission of a cybercrime might exist in different geographical locations and with differing legal systems and legislations. This situation mandates analysing cybercrime issues from differing (and sometimes opposing) social and legal contexts.29
On the operational side of doing research, cybercrime research is also challenged by a lack of primary data. Lavorgna and Holt observe that “There is no real standard or consistent processes for the collection of online data, creating substantive variations in the practices researchers adopt.”30 This specific challenge is attributed to the dominant characteristic that victims of certain types of cybercrimes are generally reluctant to report the victimisation happening to them, and they are unwilling to talk about what happens in the course of victimisation. Such a situation casts shadows on the soundness and credibility of cybercrime statistics, as a large amount of useful data goes unreported.
Furthermore, research in cybercrime is also being challenged with over-reliance on cross-sectional methodological designs. These types of designs are prone to result in shallow analysis of criminal behaviour and lack the in-depth interpretation that is normally needed in the environments of cybercrimes.31 Yet another feature that aggravates challenges of cybercrime research is its contextual limitation. By this, we refer to the reality that most of the current research in cybercrime is based in Western countries and has a clear focus on the English-speaking states. For example, the offences of pornography, sextortion, and cyber libel and slander are clear reflections of how social norms determine legal liability and criminality in these types of offences. And since cybercrimes are socially laden, this means the extant cybercrime scholarship and research reflect the cultures, behavioural patterns, and social norms of Western societies. This situation has led to the existence of differing legal ecosystems that define and proscribe virtual criminal behaviours from divergent (and often contradictory) legislative paradigms.
However, one final challenge that is relevant to cybercrime research that needs to be mentioned here is the difficulty of replicating cybercrime studies. This difficulty is attributed mainly to the fluid and dynamic nature of cybercrime environments. Very often, cybercrime studies rely on non-shareable datasets that are uniquely generated depending on the specific circumstances of the cybercrime offences under investigation. This not only affects the validity and reliability of the research results, but it goes beyond that to render longitudinal research in cybercrime a demanding and daunting task.
ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE CYBERCRIME RESEARCH
Research in cybercrime is also plagued by some ethical constraints.32 Generally speaking, the ethical aspects of cybercrime research are judged by the negative effects that cybercrime poses on society and the legislative ecosystem. Cybercrime researchers are normally required to follow and adhere to strict legal obligations, especially when dealing with private data. This being said, it is conceivable that the unprecedented technological developments that appeared during the past ten decades have brought about complex relationships between technology and society.33 In other words, the extant technological developments have, to a large extent, shaped the economic, social, and legal realities of today’s societies. As a result of this societal transformation, new patterns of behaviours, norms, and moral values appeared on the surface and started to influence and shape new value systems. These realities have contributed to the emergence of new streams of research that strive to investigate the correlation between ethics and cybercrime.
One of the early attempts to clarify what is meant by computer ethics was given by James Moore. According to Moore, computer ethics is “the analysis of the nature and social impact of computer technology and the corresponding formulation and justification of policies for the ethical use of such technology.”34 Moore suggested that the central role of computer ethics should be the creation of policies and guidelines for the use of new technology. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Moore on this specific suggestion, it remains that ethics should truly be the directing compass for all policies relating to the use of new technologies. Moore continued to clarify the very nature of computer ethics by saying that “computer ethics is a dynamic and complex field of study which considers the relationships among facts, conceptualisations, policies and values about constantly changing computer technology.”35 This statement succinctly summarises the essence of computer ethics and ultimately ethics in cybercrime.
The case of LambdaMoo (a.k.a. Bungle Affairs), which was described in 1993 by Julian Dibbell, has marked a new era in the history of cyber ethics. In brief, LambdaMoo was a virtual rape case that drew publicity during the early 1990s.36 The increasing interest in the correlation between ethics and cybercrime has developed very fast, and cyber ethics has emerged as a distinct area of research and intellectual inquiry within the broader area of ethics.37 As such, cyber ethics focuses on a myriad of interrelated issues that emanate directly from computers’ use, network connectivity, and online human behaviours.
Most of the ethics-related cases that come to courts originate in the social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and similar platforms. Although some ethics theorists opine that computer ethics (or cyber ethics) should be guided by the principles of professional ethics, our stance is different.38 We argue that the core issues of cyber ethics are broad and they spread across the technical domains of cybersecurity, network operations, systems administration, technical devices development, and the legal requirements for maintaining peace and order in society.39 Limiting cyber ethics to only the guiding principles of professional ethics might not encompass the realities of cyberspace.
Nonetheless, Liebling and Stanko assert that “ethical predicaments can’t be avoided” in cyberspace environments.40 The theories of general ethics normally provide the necessary parameters and standards for what is ethically relevant and important in order to proscribe certain types of behaviours. Naturally, the advancement of technologies brings with it new possibilities and ways of doing things. These possibilities are often associated with negative and positive repercussions, which mandate the application of certain ethical principles to streamline the new possibilities with the societal contextual realities of morality. Balancing the negative and positive effects of the technological advancements requires a trade-off between what is good and what is bad, and thus, ethics becomes indispensable as a public policy guide. Similarly, ethical analysis of new legislative endeavours related to emerging technologies generally and cybercrimes in particular should be conducted within the peripheries of morality and the value system of the society.
Laws are enacted to regulate various activities of society, including the behaviour of individual members. With the increasing reliance on online activities, the prevention of online crime and tightening of security measures have become a priority for most governments and digital services providers. The notion of security itself in cyberspace is controversial. Some scholars propose that security in cybercrime is of instrumental value, while others take the stance that security has an intrinsic value.41 But away from this philosophical debate, cybersecurity remains an intractable conundrum for law enforcement agencies as well as internet service providers.
The attempts to prevent crime and tighten security measures have generated a multitude of normative ethical concerns. For example, ethicists debate the fundamental issues of whether individual liberty should be compromised for the broader interest of society. These concerns are very obvious in the offences of pornography, cyberprostitution, and freedom of expression. The questions of whether social interaction platforms reinforce or disrupt the social fabric of societies and families are widely debated among ethicists and sociologists.42 It is a fertile area for research. Also, researchers in cybercrime are faced with the legal limitations of accessing online criminal groups and when they are trying to get informed consents of participants in research projects. Noaks and Wincup coined the term “ethical positioning” to refer to the specific relationship that exists between the researchers and the participants.43 Data protection and storage (particularly private data) is also another critical challenge that cybercrime researchers have to grapple with.
TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED CYBERCRIME RESEARCH FRAMEWORK
Research in cybercrime ranges across a diversified continuum of methodological approaches and frameworks. Specifically, these methodological approaches and frameworks include forensic, technical, social sciences, and collaborative approaches. The mentioned approaches are mainly used within the contexts of quantitative and qualitative research designs. Each one of these approaches follows pre-determined research protocols. The forensic research approach, for example, focuses on procedural elements of discovering facts in cybercrime environments. It strives to identify and study online traffic logs, recovery of deleted data or files, and analysis of digital evidence. The social sciences approach utilises sociological and criminological theories as catalysts for research. Similarly, the quantitative approaches use statistical hypothesis testing methods to achieve the stipulated research objectives. The collaborative approaches are more encompassing in the sense that they involve coordination among various entities such as computer science specialists, law enforcement experts, social scientists, and industry promoters. The collaborative approaches emphasise the importance of the multi-disciplinary nature of cybercrime research.44
FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN CYBERCRIME RESEARCH
It has already been emphasised that the surge in cybercrime is associated with technological advancements. This trend will continue, at least in the foreseeable future. The improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) are shaping a new landscape of online criminal behaviours. Cybercriminals are making use of the developments in AI, and they are changing their nefarious tactics to launch more aggressive, sophisticated, and devastating attacks. They are using AI to trace vulnerabilities in operating systems and networks and exploit them to their advantage. Artificial intelligence has also helped these cybercriminals to perfect their strategies of evading detection and escaping prosecution. Additionally, the developments in AI have also opened new avenues for scalability of severe cyberattacks through availing ready-made and off-the-shelf malicious software that can be used in different types of cybercrimes. The concept of cybercrime as a service (CaaS) is widely spreading among online criminal groups.45 The fact that CaaS is operating as a business model mandates adherence to the principles of economics and management. Specifically, it has to operate as per the principles of economies of scale, which, by definition, requires enlarging and expanding CaaS activities and capacities.46
It is a truism that technology is changing very fast, and new patterns of human behaviour are accompanying such technological changes. Current scholarship in cybercrime is able to demarcate the general trends of the phenomenon and predict the magnitude at which cybercrime is evolving.47 Within these trends and evolving circumstances of cybercrime, governments in most parts of the world are expanding or reforming their cybercrime regulatory frameworks and governance systems to cater for the new circumstances. This being said, the practice of cyber-money laundering, particularly through cryptocurrencies and other illegal financial means, will continue to be a permanent conundrum for policymakers and law enforcement agencies.48 Similarly, state-facilitated and state-initiated cyberattacks as part of the geopolitical conflicts and the modern tactics of warfare will continue to shape the future of cybercrime and notorious online activities.
CONCLUSION
The discussion in the various sections of this paper was geared towards one central goal: to argue that the use of the doctrinal black-letter legal research approach is not appropriate for cybercrime research. Effective cybercrime research, we argue, should utilise the multi-disciplinary approaches. This argument is based on the fact that the phenomenon of cybercrime has specific and distinct characteristics. The significant social, economic, and legal impacts that cybercrime has on today’s societies mandate producing reliable and valid cybercrime research. This mandate will only be achieved if multi-disciplinary approaches are used in cybercrime research.
As demonstrated in the discourse above, research in cybercrime is distinguished by its uniqueness and dynamic nature. The dynamism feature is associated with the fact that the cybercrime phenomenon is evolving and changing rapidly, and as a corollary of technological advancements. The anonymity and borderless features of cybercrime are two other critical features that necessitate using the multidisciplinary approaches when researching issues related to cybercrime. The prevalence of AI tools complicates not only the practices of cybercrime prosecutors but also those of cybercrime researchers. The three features (of anonymity, borderless-ness, and AI prevalence), together with the availability of massive data, represent the major challenges that face cybercrime researchers.
Like all other types of scientific research, ethical considerations are an integral part of the research process. Cybercrime research is not an exception here. The ethical challenges that cybercrime researchers face are directly related to the distinct characteristics of the phenomenon of cybercrime. Future research efforts should take into consideration the ethical dimensions within the broader contexts of anonymity of the cybercrime environments and the fast and vast evolving trends of AI. As such, this paper informs future empirical and conceptual cybercrime research on the best methodological approaches to be followed. In order to capture complex realities of the cyberspace criminal behaviours, research in cybercrime should deploy both the inductive and deductive analytic research frameworks. Considering the multifaceted nature of cybercrime, using the doctrinal approach in cybercrime research seems to be problematic. The efficacy of cybercrime research rests on the ability of this research to encompass and utilise both the technical and behavioural aspects of cybercrime.
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Footnotes
1. David S. Wall, “Crime, security and information communication technologies: The changing cybercrime ecosystem,” International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 31, no. 3 (2017): 16–16.
2. Adam M. Bossler, “Cybercrime research at the crossroads: where the field currently stands and innovative strategies to move forward,” in Cybercrime through an Interdisciplinary Lens, ed. Thomas J. Holt (London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2017), 37–55.
3. Gift Onwuadiamu, “Cybercrime in criminology: A systematic review of criminological theories, methods, and concepts,” Journal of Economic Criminology 8, no. 5 (2025): 1–10.
4. Fawn T. Ngo and Karuppannan Jaishankar, “Commemorating a Decade in Existence of the International Journal of Cyber Criminology: A Research Agenda to Advance the Scholarship on Cyber Crime,” International Journal of Cyber Criminology 11, no. 1 (2017): 5.
5. Majid Yar, “Doing Criminological Research Online,” in Doing Criminological Research, ed. Pamela Davies and Peter Francis, 3 ed. (Los Angeles: Sage Publications Ltd., 2018), 416.
6. Wayne C. Booth et al. The Craft of Research, 5 ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024),64 – 69.
7. Reza Banakar and Max Travers, eds., Theory and Methods in Socio-Legal Research (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2005).
8. Andrew P. Simester and A. Tony H. Smith, eds., Harm and Culpability (Oxford: OUP, 1996).
9. Anita Lavorgna and Thomas James Holt, eds., Researching Cybercrimes: Methodologies, Ethics, and Critical Approaches (Cham, Switzerland AG: Springer Nature, 2021).
10. Manel Gonzalez-Piñero et al., “Cross-fertilization of knowledge and technologies in collaborative research projects,” Journal of Knowledge Management 25, no. 11 (2021): 34 – 59.
11. Raymond Wacks, Philosophy of Law: A very Short Introduction (Oxford: OUP, 2006), 18. See also, Nicholas Walliman, Research Methods: The Basics (New York: Routledge, 2022), 18 – 32.
12. Banakar and Travers, Theory and Methods, 32.
13. Lavorgna and Holt, Researching, V.
14. Lisseth Katherine Chuquitucto Cotrina et al., “Cyber Crimes: A Systematic Review of Evolution, Trends, and Research Approaches”, Journal of Educational and Social Research, 14 no. 5 (2024): 96.
15. Cortina et al., “Cyber Crimes,” 97.
16. R. Jeevitha, R. Divya and G. Sophia Reena, “An Empirical Study on Cybercrime Impacting People in Today’s World”, Journal of Innovations in Cybersecurity and Data Science, 1 (2024): 29.
17. Bart Custer, “Profiling and Predictions: Challenges in Cybercrime Research Datafication,” in Researching Cybercrimes: Methodologies, Ethics, and Critical Approaches, ed. Anita Lavorgna and Thomas James Holt (Cham, Switzerland AG: Springer Nature, 2021), 63–79.
18. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier, Big data: A revolution that will transform how we live, work and think (New York: Harcourt Publishing Company, 2013), 73.
19. Mei Zhang, Kyle Jones, Anna Zaitsev, and Steven Sawyer, “Platform as Theoretical Framework Rather Than Just Empirical Context: How Information Science Scholars Examine Digital Platforms,” Asis & T 59, no. 1 (2022): 605.
20. Maria Bada and Jason R. C. Nurse, “Cyber security awareness campaigns in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI): Do they still fail to change behaviour?” Festschrift Symposium (2026): 79.
21. Michael G. Maxfield and Earl R. Babbie, Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology, 9 ed., (Boston: Cengage Learning, 2025), 55.
22. Thomas James Holt and Adam M. Bossler, Cybercrime in Progress: Theory and Prevention of Technology-Enabled Offenses (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2016), 65.
23. Susan W. Brenner, Cybercrime: Criminal threats from cyberspace (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010), 136.
24. Kristy Holtfreter and Travis J. Meyers, “Challenges for Cybercrime Theory, Research, and Policy,” The Norwich Review of International and Transnational Crime (Inaugural ed., 2015): 54–65.
25. Robert V. Kozinets, Netnography: The essential guide to qualitative social media research, 3 ed. (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications Ltd., 2026).
26. Majid Yar, “The novelty of ‘cybercrime’: An assessment in light of routine activity theory,” European Journal of Criminology 2, no. 4 (2005): 407–427.
27. Adam M. Bossler and Tamar Berenblum, “Introduction: New directions in cybercrime research,” Journal of Crime and Justice 42 no. 5, (2019): 495–499.
28. Cecelia Horan and Hossein Saiedian, “Cyber Crime Investigation: Landscape, Challenges, and Future Research Directions,” Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy 1 (2021): 580–596.
29. Anna Lauren Hoffmann and Anne Jonas, “Recasting Justice for Internet and Online Industry Research Ethics,” in Internet Research Ethics for the Social Age: New Challenges, Cases, and Contexts, ed. Michael Zimmer and Katharina Kinder-Kurlanda (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2018), 3–19.
30. Anita Lavorgna and Thomas J. Holt, Researching, V.
31. Xiaofeng Wang and Zhenshun Cheng, “Cross-Sectional Studies: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Recommendations,” CHEST Journal 158 no. 1, (2020): S65–S71.
32. Joycelyn M. Pollock, Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice (Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2019), 80.
33. Debborah G. Johnson, Computer Ethics: Analyzing Information Technology, 4 ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2009), 53.
34. In fact, James Moore in his 1985 article titled “What is Computer Ethics” tried to define what is meant by computer ethics. He articulated a definition of the terms that is being used until date. For details, see: James Moore, “What is Computer Ethics?” Meta Philosophy 6, no. 4 (1985): 266–275.
35. Moore, 267.
36. Julian Dibbell, My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World (London: Fourth Estate Ltd., 1998), 11–30.
37. The early pioneers of cyber ethics were using the term “computer ethics” rather than cyber ethics.
38. Christopher Meyers, The Professional Ethics: Toolkit (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018), 40.
39. Luciano Floridi, “Information ethics: On the philosophical foundation of computer ethics,” Journal of Ethics and Information Technology 1, (1999): 33–52.
40. Alison Liebling and Betsy Stanko, “Allegiance and Ambivalence: Some Dilemmas in Researching Disorder and Violence,” The British Journal of Criminology 41, no. 3 (2001): 421– 430.
41. Lesley Noaks and Emma Wincup, Criminological Research: Understanding Qualitative Methods (London: Sage Publications, 2004), 47.
42. Mark Grabowski and Eric P. Robinson, Cyber Law and Ethics: Regulation of the Connected World (New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2022), 53, 67.
43. Noaks and Wincup, 50.
44. Thomas James Holt, “Situating the problem of cybercrime in a multidisciplinary context,” in Cybercrime Through an Interdisciplinary Lens, ed. Thomas James Holt (New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2017), 1–16.
45. Akitra, “The Rise of Cybercrime-as-a-Service: Understanding the Underground Economy”, April 13, 2026, https://akitra.com/blog/the-rise-of-cybercrime-as-a-service/.
46. Isaac Ehrlich, “Economics of Criminal Law: Crime and Punishment,” in The Oxford Handbook of Law and Economics 3, ed. Francesco Parisi, (2017): 295–322.
47. Thomas J. Holt and Adam M. Bossler, 171.
48. Aleksandra Kuzior et al., “Cybersecurity and cybercrime: Current trends and threats,” Journal of International Studies 17, no. 2 (2024): 220–239.