DETECTION AND PREVENTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA CYBERCRIME AMONG STUDENTS

The wide acceptance of social networking sites motivates students to use it for entertainment, finding and chatting with friends, sharing photos and videos, post happenings and events in real-time. Presently, millions of students connect to social networking site every day. This makes the criminal elements in the society trick the students by using their information available on the social networking sites to commit crime against them. This research investigated the types of crimes that are committed to students on social networking sites. Also, the researchers investigated the ways and techniques used by these criminals to commit crime against the students. At the same time, the research also investigated the various ways and techniques the students can use to detect, prevent and also to mitigate the impact of such crimes against them. Literature review showed that mostly kidnapping, sexual harassment, bullying, credit card fraud and threatening crimes that are committed to students on social networking sites can be avoided. The various ways and techniques used by the criminal to commit crimes against the students such as identity theft, phishing, spam etc. were also identified. Similarly, the various techniques like parental controls used in Facebook, TheOneSpy monitoring app used in Whatsapp that are used to protect the students were discussed. At the same time, computer forensic data analysis techniques used to detect crime against the students was analyzed. The researchers hope that this paper would be a guideline to students, parents and teachers in protecting the students against the menace of social networking sites.