Evaluating cybercrime based on internet of things technology and level of readiness for solutions implementations in Rivers State

Abstract

This paper aims at evaluating cybercrimes based on Internet of Things (IoT) Technology, emanating from the issues of IoT devices such as challenging  management environment, different technology profile, processing capabilities, use-cases and physical locations and levels of readiness for solutions  implementations in Rivers State, Nigeria. Two research questions supported the study with one null hypotheses which were tested at 0.05 level of  significance. A descriptive research design was used for the study. The research population was made up of 92 male and female Information and  communication Technology (ICT) based business operators randomly selected from twenty three local government of Rivers State. Ten items structured  questionnaire titiled “Cybercrime Based on Internet of Things Technology and Level of Readiness for Solutions Implementations Questionnaire  (CBIoTREIQ) was used for the survey. The instrument was validated by three experts in Federal college of education (Technical) Omoku. The Pearson  product Moment Reliability Co-efficient was used to obtain a correlation value of 0.87. Data related to the research questions were analyzed using mean  and standard deviation while ttest analysis was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The research surveys cybercrimes  considering the following aspects; identity theft, false alert, dating and romance scam and online shopping scam. The investigation shows the highest  value representing 30% of involvement in identity theft category with the lowest value representing 10% of involvement in online shopping scam. It  further reveals that a high record of web based applications representing the mode of operation and the level of readiness of operators for solution  implementation is low in Rivers State. It was recommended that while awaiting the full utilization the vast potentials of IoT devices and their vulnerability  to commit their crimes, the Nigerian government and relevant authorities must be proactive to develop preventive measures to this impending danger.