On the 8th November 2023, the Digital Trust and Security Seminar Series welcomed Dr Asier Moneva to give a talk titled 'Online Ads against Cybercrime'.
The event attracted a wide array of attendees from across Northern England, including Liverpool and South Yorkshire.
Dr David Buil-Gil, Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Criminology at The University of Manchester, kicked off proceedings with a short welcome and introduction to all attendees. Following this, Dr Moneva commenced his talk.
Dr Moneva is a postdoc at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR) and also at the Center of Expertise Cyber Security at The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
His background is in Criminology. In particular, he researches how, when, and where cybercrime occur, focusing on the human factors involved. He relies mainly on quantitative methods and data science, and enjoys collaborating with researchers from other disciplines as well as with practitioners and professionals. The purpose of his research is twofold: to generate knowledge to better understand cybercrime, and to find solutions to reduce it or mitigate its impact.
This particular seminar was centered on how law enforcement agencies around the world are using online ad campaigns to cut off the pathways into cybercrime of aspiring criminals. These campaigns are a novel and cost-efficient prevention strategy, as they have the potential to reach thousands of potential cybercriminals for a relatively low cost. However, there is still little research on how they work and how useful they are.
The seminar showcased a series of studies conducted since 2020 in collaboration with the Netherlands Police's Cyber Offender Prevention Squad (COPS) which exemplified a successful partnership between academia and law enforcement. The joint effort led to the development and implementation of online ad campaigns to reduce cybercrime, such as DDoS attacks and hacking, and diverted potential cybercriminals towards prosocial alternatives in cybersecurity.
Dr Moneva delved into the implications of these findings, both from a scientific and practical standpoint and illustrated the process of developing an evidence-based cybercrime prevention strategy at the national (and international) level.
A Q&A session followed which allowed attendees to ask any questions to Dr Moneva. Soon after, Dr Buil-Gil brought things to a close which was followed by a networking session.
If you missed this event, you can watch it back here:
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