Online Harassment & Stalking
What is online harassment?
Online harassment and cyber bullying can take a wide variety of forms including:
- Sending menacing or upsetting messages – known as “trolling”
- Identity theft
- Making available personal information – known as Doxxing
- Cyber stalking
The Internet can be a huge asset when conducting research, however did we live without our favourite search engine? From academic studies, to checking out a new recipe, the vast majority of the population use it for quite innocent or harmless purposes. However, with a huge array of publicly available information, it means Doxxers can have a field day, taking things much further than an innocent search for contact information.
Doxxers have an agenda and like identity theft, doxxing usually requires a bit of unscrupulous investigation on the part of the person digging up the information, such as stalking the target’s social media profiles looking for pets’ names, maiden names or other clues that may be used to guess passwords or answer security questions. Unlike identity theft, however, the goal of doxxing is typically harassment, humiliation or even retribution, rather than financial gain. Once a victim’s personal details are publicly revealed, who knows what other devious users may do with them.
Online harassment can start at any time, sometimes without you even being aware. If you are concerned about suspicious behaviour online or worse, malicious online harassment, trolling, or doxxing then we can help. If you are being stalked or are being threatened online then maybe we can discover who is behind those apparently anonymous messages.
