Cybercrime Research: A Review of Research Themes, Frameworks, Methods, and Future Research Directions

Technological advancements have transformed the way people go about their daily lives. However, this development is not without unintended consequences, as cyber-criminals have also devised ways to gain leverage. The authors conducted a literature review on 106 articles across 40 journals to bring to fore cybercrime studies that have been conducted according to the research themes, methodological approaches, level of analysis, geographical focus, and publication outlets. Themes identified in the re- view were categorised under an existing typology of cybercrime: cyber-trespass, cyber-deception/theft, cyber-pornography and obscenity, and cyber-violence. This review suggested two main directions for future research in terms of socio-technical and theoretical approaches with five research questions. The originality of this review stems from the fact that it is arguably one of the first reviews that have reviewed cybercrime from a holistic perspective.