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Cybercrime is touted as any harmful behaviour that is in some way related to a computer but does not have a specific legal reference. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore cybersecurity as a response to combating cybercrime, focusing on demystifying the prevailing threats, while offering recommendations to the African regions. Moreover, this qualitative study employed a non-empirical research design: Systematic review methodology to analyse grey literature and primary research studies peer-reviewed and published, restricted from 2010-2022, not following yearly sequential consideration. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Critical Appraisal Skill Programme (CASP) were employed to ensure the trustworthiness of the findings of this study based on reviewed conventional and seminal literature studies on this subject. The main findings of this study rest on a lack of a common universal definition of cybercrime, this has an impact on its prevention and ignores enormous economic value associated with the commission of this crime across the world, African regions included. It was also observed that this criminal act is presently committed with internet usage, consisting of copyright infringements, computer-related fraud, child or adult pornography, and network security violations, amongst others. Equally, addressing this scourge in African regions requires advanced skills and knowledge; exceeding the average computer and internet user.  It is also critical to recognise the importance of implementing efficient cybersecurity methods, as policing this crime remains an important component of the Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA), and more innovative strategies are required and a globally coordinated response to this problem is urgently sought.

With the rapid advancement of information technology (IT), it increasingly becomes challenging to identify crimes devoid of a digital component. An increase in internet users correlates with a rising percentage of cybercriminals transitioning traditional crime to the online environment. It is essential to enhance the cybercrime preparedness of law enforcement agencies to effectively address and eliminate this issue. Cyber-attacks have adversely affected the escalating epidemic, necessitating effective solutions. This paper employs qualitative content analysis to examine the challenges and opportunities faced by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in addressing cybercrime. The objective is to propose strategies and methodologies for the establishment of robust professional institutions and the allocation of adequate resources to address cybercrime effectively. The findings indicate a relationship between organisational context, complexity, and control in the context of cybercrime response. Larger agencies, such as the SAPS, those whose officers perform more non-routine tasks, and agencies operating under an active collective bargaining agreement are more inclined to allocate specific resources to cybercrime. Agencies characterised by increased hierarchical layers, greater specialisation, and a higher reliance on civilian employees are more inclined to assign dedicated personnel to cybercrime efforts. This article is among the limited studies employing this framework to analyse the relationship between organisational characteristics and responses to cybercrime. This perspective is beneficial for analysing police organisations, policies, programs, and strategies.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the challenges encountered by the South African Police services (SAPS) when dealing with 4IR. The study used a qualitative approach because the study wished to obtain practical answers to the problem, as well as the explanations provided by participants who are practitioners in the field and a total of forty (40) police officers were selected to participate in the study. The researcher followed purposive sampling. The reasoning for using purposive sampling is that it is based on the assumptions that the participants have in-depth knowledge in the chosen areas of the study.  The findings of the study are that the local police stations of SAPS Gauteng are where many victims of crimes emerging from 4IR get turned away by officials who do not understand the various cybercrimes, the applicable charges, or how to go about escalating the matter. The study further found that the Government policy seems to prioritize statistics, quotas, and the images they reflect as opposed to the true situation hence crimes emerging from 4IR are poorly understood, prevented, and investigated. The study recommends that IT capacity and resources within SAPS have to be developed in order to ensure that the SAPS in Gauteng province is able to investigate, combat and trace the sophisticated crimes caused by the criminals. The SAPS needs to allocate funds to buy IT equipment, software and headhunt personnel who have skills, knowledge, and capacity to curb, investigate and combat 4IR crimes.

Social media is considered a double-edged sword, with both positive and negative effects. A qualitative research approach was adopted to explore the extent to which and the ways in which South African police use social media in the study area. The findings were collected through semi-structured interviews with 22 participants comprising the South African Police Service (SAPS) officials in the Giyani Cluster policing area. The findings indicate that criminals in the Limpopo Province use social media to commit crimes in the country, other countries in Africa, and elsewhere. The findings also indicate that social media is used to bring positive attention to law enforcement agencies and aid in criminal investigations. Although the positive impact of social media was highlighted in these experiences, persistent problems and challenges also featured in the data. Finally, officer insights were drawn upon to make recommendations for future policing policy and research. This paper concludes that social media as a tool can be utilised in terms of data gathering, prediction and spotting broader patterns, for combating organised crime by the SAPS.

Today use of Credit Card even in developing countries has become a common scenario. People use it to shop, pay bills and for online transactions. This study explored the challenges of forensic technology in responding to credit card fraud as an approach used by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in Sedibeng region. This study was carried out utilising a qualitative approach and thirty nine interviews were carried out among officials deployed in the SAPS, community leaders, members of the community and bank managers. The key findings indicated that the challenges in responding to this scourge is that the perpetrators utilise advanced technologies resources (computer hacking software) as opposed to SAPS which does not have systems nor capacity to effectively respond to this crime. The limited resources to respond to this crime adequately. For recommendations; significant emphases should be directed on the promotion of public awareness through public education. The intensive training of SAPS officials and inter-governmental collaboration between the SAPS, community police forums, bank managers and South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) in understanding this technology are highly advised.

This study evaluates the nature and extent of cybercrimes prevalent within higher learning institutions of South Africa. Cyber-attacks are growing at a distressing rate and has posed a serious challenge within academia by impacting and disrupting normal learning setting. Universities data infrastructure is vulnerable to criminals, can be compromised easily while students and staff are not alien to proportion of cybercrime impact inclusive of hacking, financial loss, bullying, illegal circulation of pornography, blackmailing’s, extortion and many other crimes. This case study evaluates student views about cybercrimes prevalent, causes, interrogated views about cybersecurity channels and impact of crimes at the University of Venda (Univen). Quantitative approach is applied, where snowballing sample procedure was utilised to quantitatively sample Univen students. The focus of this section, is Univen students, therefore 200 questionnaires were circulated amongst them to collect data. The research utilised the routine activities theory and differential association theory of crime as the study problem framework. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 for quantitative data analysis is used to analyse data. The study uncovered depth of cybercrimes prevalent within Univen and extent of victimization and perpetration. It also exposes legal challenges hindering reporting or disclosure of violence suffered in online platforms. It makes recommendations that could be used to inform adoption of framework to manage cybercrimes within higher education institutions (HEI) of South Africa and to find alternatives programmes that will positively address cyber incidents within academia.

With the rapid advancement of information technology (IT), it increasingly becomes challenging to identify crimes devoid of a digital component. An increase in internet users correlates with a rising percentage of cybercriminals transitioning traditional crime to the online environment. It is essential to enhance the cybercrime preparedness of law enforcement agencies to effectively address and eliminate this issue. Cyber-attacks have adversely affected the escalating epidemic, necessitating effective solutions. This paper employs qualitative content analysis to examine the challenges and opportunities faced by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in addressing cybercrime. The objective is to propose strategies and methodologies for the establishment of robust professional institutions and the allocation of adequate resources to address cybercrime effectively. The findings indicate a relationship between organisational context, complexity, and control in the context of cybercrime response. Larger agencies, such as the SAPS, those whose officers perform more non-routine tasks, and agencies operating under an active collective bargaining agreement are more inclined to allocate specific resources to cybercrime. Agencies characterised by increased hierarchical layers, greater specialisation, and a higher reliance on civilian employees are more inclined to assign dedicated personnel to cybercrime efforts. This article is among the limited studies employing this framework to analyse the relationship between organisational characteristics and responses to cybercrime. This perspective is beneficial for analysing police organisations, policies, programs, and strategies.

Today use of Credit Card even in developing countries has become a common scenario. People use it to shop, pay bills and for online transactions. This study explored the challenges of forensic technology in responding to credit card fraud as an approach used by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in Sedibeng region. This study was carried out utilising a qualitative approach and thirty nine interviews were carried out among officials deployed in the SAPS, community leaders, members of the community and bank managers. The key findings indicated that the challenges in responding to this scourge is that the perpetrators utilise advanced technologies resources (computer hacking software) as opposed to SAPS which does not have systems nor capacity to effectively respond to this crime. The limited resources to respond to this crime adequately. For recommendations; significant emphases should be directed on the promotion of public awareness through public education. The intensive training of SAPS officials and inter-governmental collaboration between the SAPS, community police forums, bank managers and South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) in understanding this technology are highly advised.

Cybercrime is touted as any harmful behaviour that is in some way related to a computer but does not have a specific legal reference. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore cybersecurity as a response to combating cybercrime, focusing on demystifying the prevailing threats, while offering recommendations to the African regions. Moreover, this qualitative study employed a non-empirical research design: Systematic review methodology to analyse grey literature and primary research studies peer-reviewed and published, restricted from 2010-2022, not following yearly sequential consideration. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) and Critical Appraisal Skill Programme (CASP) were employed to ensure the trustworthiness of the findings of this study based on reviewed conventional and seminal literature studies on this subject. The main findings of this study rest on a lack of a common universal definition of cybercrime, this has an impact on its prevention and ignores enormous economic value associated with the commission of this crime across the world, African regions included. It was also observed that this criminal act is presently committed with internet usage, consisting of copyright infringements, computer-related fraud, child or adult pornography, and network security violations, amongst others. Equally, addressing this scourge in African regions requires advanced skills and knowledge; exceeding the average computer and internet user.  It is also critical to recognise the importance of implementing efficient cybersecurity methods, as policing this crime remains an important component of the Law Enforcement Agencies (LEA), and more innovative strategies are required and a globally coordinated response to this problem is urgently sought.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the challenges encountered by the South African Police services (SAPS) when dealing with 4IR. The study used a qualitative approach because the study wished to obtain practical answers to the problem, as well as the explanations provided by participants who are practitioners in the field and a total of forty (40) police officers were selected to participate in the study. The researcher followed purposive sampling. The reasoning for using purposive sampling is that it is based on the assumptions that the participants have in-depth knowledge in the chosen areas of the study.  The findings of the study are that the local police stations of SAPS Gauteng are where many victims of crimes emerging from 4IR get turned away by officials who do not understand the various cybercrimes, the applicable charges, or how to go about escalating the matter. The study further found that the Government policy seems to prioritize statistics, quotas, and the images they reflect as opposed to the true situation hence crimes emerging from 4IR are poorly understood, prevented, and investigated. The study recommends that IT capacity and resources within SAPS have to be developed in order to ensure that the SAPS in Gauteng province is able to investigate, combat and trace the sophisticated crimes caused by the criminals. The SAPS needs to allocate funds to buy IT equipment, software and headhunt personnel who have skills, knowledge, and capacity to curb, investigate and combat 4IR crimes.