Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

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LEA usage scenarios for social media
referenced using robust, “closed-source” intelligence sources such as the healthcare 
and criminal records of the individual making the threat, and the individual's prox-
imity to the location that the threat is being made against. This cross-referencing of 
intelligence then builds up a robust portfolio of knowledge that then can be used to 
assess the severity and validity of the threat being made, which in turn can be filtered 
down to operational officers in instances where further, on scene action is required.
A key concern that has been associated with applying data mined from social 
media in this way is that it is considered extremely challenging to separate genuine 
threats from the emotional outbursts and tongue-in-cheek musings of disgruntled 
individuals. This is where an understanding of different types of user behavior on 
social media is of significance. The cross-referencing of threat indicators from social 
media with robust closed-source intelligence sources is extremely valuable in aiding 
to distinguish likely and probable threats from the “noise” of social media. For fur-
ther validity, threat indication can also trigger additional analysis of an individual's 
social media presence, as individuals commonly use the same alias' and user-names 
across services, looking to identify any other potential indicators that the individual 
may be capable, and intent upon committing the crime to which they have been 
threatening across a range of social media platforms. For example, this process could 
entail the identification that an individual has photographs of themselves posing with 
weapons, thus providing further validity to the case that the individual is capable of 
carrying out the threat to which they have eluded.
SOCIAL MEDIA-BASED APPROACH IN A HOSTAGE SCENARIO
Hostage situations are defined as events whereby the actor(s) (i.e., the hostage taker(s)) 
are holding one of more persons captive against their will. The motives for these at-
tacks can be diverse, and vary from expressive motives such as voicing an opinion 
or religious view to instrumental motives such as for financial gain through ransom 
demands (
Alexander and Klein, 2009
). There are a number of possibilities for com-
munication and the use of social media during hostage situations with the victims, 
hostage takers, LEAs, media outlets and public bystanders all possessing the potential 
to comment and monitor the situation before, during, and after the event itself.
In addition, the hostage takers may monitor the outside situation and make iden-
tity checks on hostages using social media profiles and web searches such as that 
exemplified during the Mumbai attacks (
Oh et al., 2011
); they may also select their 
hostages via social media by monitoring movements or personal possessions. On rare 
occasions, hostages themselves may also be able to covertly contact family, friends 
or LEAs, real-time comments and updates can also be posted by news organiza-
tions and bystanders, LEAs are also able to use social media to communicate official 
information while they can also obtain background information on hostage takers' 
political, religious, and personal standpoints posted online to facilitate negotiation 
by understanding their motives. For example, two scenarios where LEAs could use 
social media are for the prevention of the spread of sensitive operational details and 
to understand the motives behind a given hostage situation.

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