An Investigation into Ipredation in Cyberspace towards Developing a Framework for Preventing Ipredators’ Attacks

The information age society is becoming highly dependent on technological advancements and in particular software platform and devices that can access the cyberspace. The way people acquire, access and share data, files and, information have significantly revolutionized peoples‟ social-technical interactions shaping their lifestyle and activities in regard to both the physical space and cyberspace. Ubiquitous computing for instance tends to offer digital society great, exciting, powerful features and capabilities that enable reliable and productive encounters within convenient environments. In ubiquitous environments however, there is high possibility of users‟ data, files and other users‟ digital assets being exposed to high risk of disclosure and tampering by iPredators. Such disclosure and tampering of users‟ sensitive data and information potentially exposes the targeted persons in society to many risks in regard to their digital and environmental security and privacy. In event of a successful iPredator‟s attacks on targets, the aftermath tend to be quite devastating sometimes leading to loss of lives, financial investments, critical data, human dignity and/or freedom. Dangers lurking in the cyberspace where there is increased usage of ICTs within a highly connected society of people and devices are therefore real and costly. The iPredators attack on users in cyberspace is a problem that requires cyber security awareness for users to address. To achieve this, this paper explored the various typologies of iPredators attacks targeting users in the cyberspace. The output of the study lead to a proposed framework by the researcher for preventing iPredators attacks on cyberspace. Desktop study research technique was adopted by the study which inclined to qualitative research design.