**5. Patterns of cybercrime in Nigeria**

Cybercrime entails the application and manipulation of the internet to fraudulently derive benefits from unsuspecting users. Some of these crimes includes, spoofing/phishing, spamming or escrow services, web jacking and scam messages. Different authors have varying views but in simple terms, cybercrime encompasses all illegal activities carried out by a single or more individuals most times referred to

## *Cybercrime: Victims' Shock Absorption Mechanisms DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106818*

as scammers, hackers, fraudsters, "419ners", using the internet through the medium of networked computers, telephones and other ICT equipment. Thus, the acts of cybercrime originated from the emergence of computers, telephones and other ICT inventions. Numerous conventional crimes are being perpetrated with the use of ICT inventions, they include:

*Auction fraud*: This is the misrepresentation of a product advertised for sale through an internet auction site, or the non-delivery of the products purchased through an internet auction site. The seller posts the auction as if he resides in the United States, then responds to victims with a congratulatory email stating he is outside the United States for business reasons, family emergency etc. They often post the auction under one name, and ask for the funds to be transferred to another individual or directly to him via Western Union, Money Gram or bank to bank wire transfer.

*Huckstering*: This is a process of obtaining email address from the internet access point using email harvesting software called web spiders (such as email Extractor Lite 1.4) to send a large number of messages to each harvested spam-trapped addresses and typical product based Spam (i.e. Spam selling an actual product to be shipped or downloaded even if the product itself is fraudulent).

*Piracy*: This is the act of illegally making access to people's soft copies such as, books, games, movies and CDs or DVDs, etc and make copies of same to disseminate for some gains which is usually financial gains [23]. Example, the use of pirated Microsoft Windows to install newly acquired computers; pirated home movies; and pirated MP3 music installed in phones, Ipads and other gadgets.

*Hacking*: This is the act of cracking firewalls or security codes with the use of computers, laptops and sophisticated phones in order to gain access to people bank accounts, data or any other profitable information.

*Phishing/spoofing*: This is the act of faking or forging digital information or documents [24]. Spoofing/phishing specifically connotes the fraudulent acts of forging a website to make it look like the original one to deceive persons having legitimate transactions with such websites or the harvesting of people's e-mails, and after consuming their contents, use same to defraud other people, who somehow feels the information received is authentic.

*Ponzi/pyramid*: This is a kind of money doubling scam. It is usually initiated as an investment for never to be receive profits. Because it a bogus and attractive investment proposal, desperate individuals often fall victim. The victims of these scams neither receives dividends nor their initial capital. Example, the 2009 money doubling scam in Calabar, Ikom and Ogoja in Cross River State.

*Nigeria letter or "419"*: This named after a section in the Nigerian Criminal Code. 419 combines impersonation, obtaining by false pretence or advance fee fraud. The major trick for this scam is calculated persuasions. Victims are usually hooked with sensible persuasions after the fraudsters have anticipated their thoughts for every step to be taken. Victims who are charmed by these well added lies end up losing huge sums of cash or divulging their credits cards numbers or Automated Teller Machine pins.

*Credit card fraud*: This involves illegal or unauthorised use of people's credit/debit cards to steal their money. Out of carelessness or negligence, victims usually compromise their credit/debit cards numbers to fraudsters, who actually get same from close observation or outright theft, sometimes on gun point. In Nigeria, such numbers are obtained in ATM withdrawal terminals or robbery at any location and pins are obtained on gun point.

*Identity theft*: This is the act of impersonation for the purpose of committing theft. Individuals and organizational fake identities are used by fraudsters to dupe persons operating legitimate businesses.

*Data dadding*: This is a kind of attack which involves altering raw data just before it is processed by a computer and then changing it back after the processing is completed.

*Salami attacks*: These attacks are prevalent in the financial institutions. It is an alteration that is so insignificantly made such that in a single case it would go normally unnoticed. For instance, Salami Attack occurs where a bank employee inserts a program such as 'logic bomb' into the bank servers, that deducts small amount of money from the account of every customer and deposits it in another account opened and owned by the staff but with a different account name.

*Internet time thefts*: This is the act of manipulating or circumventing servers of network service providers in order to hack their passwords and gain login access. Fraudsters usually steal airtime from Internet Service Providers or GSM service providers, like the case that affected MTN Nigeria in February 2009.

*Web jacking*: This is the process of fraudulently gaining access into individual's, corporate organisation or government websites or e-mails and completely taking charge or control of it. This is done by breaking through the passwords and other unique features, and editing same whereby the original owner may not be able to gain access again.

*Phone phishing*: Phishing attack also extends to phones such that messages claimed to come from a bank may tell users to dial a phone number regarding problems with their bank accounts. Once the number (owned by the phisher, and provided by a voice over IP Service) has been dialled, prompts would tell users to enter their account numbers and Personal Identification Number (PIN) which the Phisher would use in defrauding the victim.

*Pornography*: This is the act of using ICT gadgets to illegally publish pornographic images, or the use of internet to download pornographic contents illegally. Most people still have the understanding that pornography does not amount to crime, but they forget to know that most pornographic images are illegally produced, and so everybody benefitting from such content is a criminal, while those less than 18years are delinquents.

*Sale of illegal articles*: This is the process of selling contrabands or illegal products such as hard drugs or weapons of mass destruction through the use of internet websites, e-mails, short message services and other means of digital communication. .

*Employment/business opportunity fraud*: On the Internet different websites and most often 'pop-ups' on web pages have been design to advertise lucrative employment opportunities and businesses with the aim of defrauding unemployed persons.

*Forgery*: This is the act of counterfeiting an original document, made possible and easy by the emergence of information and communication technology. It is the act of faking an original money note or coin, or any other document to make it look similar or almost the same as the legal or original one. In Nigeria, there are a lot of forged certificates and naira notes.

*Cyber defamation*: Character defamation as crime has also migrated from the verbal physical world into the digital world. This is an act of making mails, faxes, text messages, etc, slaying somebody's character and distributing same to acquaintances of the target victim. This is usually done for some selfish and fringe benefits.

*Cyber theft*: Any form of criminal activity that involves the use of information and communication technology is called cyber theft. Cyber theft is synonymous to
