ABSTRACT The recent severity and frequency of cybercrime has been dominated by a single theme – the COVID-19 pandemic. This research develops a multi-level influence model to explore how cybercriminals are exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic by assessing situational factors, identifying victims, impersonating trusted sources, selecting attack methods, and employing social engineering techniques. The model extends upon prior work on influence techniques and emotional appeals that cybercriminals employ, by bringing into sharper focus the role of situational factors in COVID-19 related cybercrime attacks. Content and thematic analysis was conducted on 185 distinct COVID-19 cybercrime scam incident documents, including text, images, and photos, provided by a global online fraud and cybersecurity company tracking COVID-19 related cybercrime. The analysis reveals interesting patterns about the sheer breadth and diversity of COVID-19 related cybercrime and how these crimes are continually evolving in response to changing situational factors. It is hoped that these insights and recommendations for end-users and organisations can contribute to a safer digital world as we cope with many other pressing challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

中文翻译：

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COVID-19 主题网络犯罪的多层次影响模型

摘要 最近网络犯罪的严重程度和频率一直由一个主题主导——COVID-19 大流行。这项研究开发了一个多层次的影响模型，通过评估情境因素、识别受害者、冒充可信来源、选择攻击方法和采用社会工程技术来探索网络犯罪分子如何利用 COVID-19 大流行。该模型扩展了先前关于网络犯罪分子所使用的影响技术和情感诉求的工作，通过更加关注情境因素在 COVID-19 相关网络犯罪攻击中的作用。对 185 份不同的 COVID-19 网络犯罪诈骗事件文件（包括文本、图像和照片）进行了内容和主题分析，这些文件由一家跟踪 COVID-19 相关网络犯罪的全球在线欺诈和网络安全公司提供。该分析揭示了有关 COVID-19 相关网络犯罪的广度和多样性的有趣模式，以及这些犯罪如何随着不断变化的情境因素而不断发展。当我们在 COVID-19 大流行期间应对许多其他紧迫挑战时，希望这些针对最终用户和组织的见解和建议能够为更安全的数字世界做出贡献。