Social media and its role for LEAs: Review and applications

Social media has become a major aspect of online activity, and thus an essential part of cybercrime and cyber terrorism-related operations. As LEA's (law enforcement agencies) focus on cybercrime and cyber terrorism threats increases, so does the requirement to consider the potential application of social media as a vital aspect of any cyber defense strategy. In order to develop an understanding of cyber-related activity, an appreciation of social media's role in society is required to enable the development of strategies that tackle not only cybercrime and cyber terrorism, but also crimes facilitated through the use of social media. These include its potential exploitation in combatting a wide variety of criminal threats, such as those identified in the scenarios in the section “LEA Usage Scenarios for Social Media,” and ultimately in the development of competitive advantage over a wide variety of illicit criminal activity.