White-collar crime in cyber time: the role of opportunity in committing financial crime online

Abstract

The advent and expansion of Internet-enabled technology made likely the accomplishment of remarkable improvements in research, expertise, and communication. Unfortunately, computers and the Internet have furthermore supplied a new natural environment for crime. As pointed out by Jaishankar (2011), with the introduction of the Internet and subsequent possibilities, various forms of crime that have long existed before computer access require altered definitions to include the new ways these crimes can be committed. This paper provides with an overview on white-collar crime and suggests that committing financial crime online or through computer-enabled technologies becomes more attractive for the offenders from opportunity perspective of the convenience theory. The purpose of this study was to contribute to the discussion on white-collar crime by identifying several characteristics of cyberspace that increase an attractiveness of engaging in online crime and finding the specifics of committing that crime from different perspectives in cyber context, followed by providing a foundation for further research in this field. As a result of the study, there were severalised advantageous characteristics of the Internet related to crime category, criminals, crime type, situations and convenience dimensions. The findings of this research suggest ten factors that make online crime more attractive and convenient option. Seven of these factors were obtained through analysis of secondary and primary data: disconnected nature of personal communication, anonymity, geographical and timing distance, network size effect, low cost standard, no need for violence, and weak law regulation. The remaining three factors were empirically identified by experts in the field of cybersecurity and financial crime: larger rewards and returns on investment; automatization of the crime; and the dematerialisation of the crime. The findings also suggest that factors differ in terms of their positioning status. However, the results also indicate disagreement of experts with some of the stated hypothesis. Future research is necessary and encourages to examine the need to continue the academic discourse regarding the boundaries of white-collar crime and whitecollar cybercrime. Finally, we consider gamification methods in employee training as a prevention strategy that could help organizations to mitigate the threat of cyberattacks. Due to high significance of the subject in the organizational context, there was provided a detailed overview of the topic. Key words: white-collar crime, cyber, cyber attack, cybercrime, technology, convenience theory, opportunity, financial crime, gamification, training.