When considering a paradigm shift in higher education, it is imperative to focus on removing obstacles against maintaining integrity in academia. One such obstacle is contract cheating sites that have mushroomed disproportionately during the 18 months of emergency distance learning threatening graduate quality and university reputations (McKie, Essay mills targeting students as pandemic crisis shifts HE online, 2020). It was sharply brought to focus in 2015 due to a mass-scale scandal involving 16 universities and more than 1000 students leading to a subsequent law making such services illegal in Australia. Contract cheating is a mushrooming industry that is constantly targeting often unsuspecting students under the guise of legitimate help. Moreover, these services in turn began black mailing students after delivering services (Draper et al., Int J Educ Integr 17:13, 2021). It is therefore vital to explore the existence and number of such websites that target students in UAE, sometime