This book describes the key cybercrime threats facing individuals, businesses, and organizations in our online world. The author first explains malware and its origins; he describes the extensive underground economy and the various attacks that cybercriminals have developed, including malware, spam, and hacking; he offers constructive advice on countermeasures for individuals and organizations; and he discusses the related topics of cyberespionage, cyberwarfare, hacktivism, and anti-malware organizations, and appropriate roles for the state and the media. The author has worked in the security industry for decades, and he brings a wealth of experience and expertise. In particular he offers insights about the human factor, the people involved on both sides and their styles and motivations. He writes in an accessible, often humorous way about real-world cases in industry, and his collaborations with police and government agencies worldwide, and the text features interviews with leading industry experts. The book is important reading for all professionals engaged with securing information, people, and enterprises. It’s also a valuable introduction for the general reader who wants to learn about cybersecurity.

The most extensive account yet of the lives of cybercriminals and the vast international industry they have created, deeply sourced and based on field research in the world’s technology-crime hotspots. Cybercrime seems invisible. Attacks arrive out of nowhere, their origins hidden by layers of sophisticated technology. Only the victims are clear. But every crime has its perpetrator—specific individuals or groups sitting somewhere behind keyboards and screens. Jonathan Lusthaus lifts the veil on the world of these cybercriminals in the most extensive account yet of the lives they lead, and the vast international industry they have created. We are long past the age of the lone adolescent hacker tapping away in his parents’ basement. Cybercrime now operates like a business. Its goods and services may be illicit, but it is highly organized, complex, driven by profit, and globally interconnected. Having traveled to cybercrime hotspots around the world to meet with hundreds of law enforcement agents, security gurus, hackers, and criminals, Lusthaus takes us inside this murky underworld and reveals how this business works. He explains the strategies criminals use to build a thriving industry in a low-trust environment characterized by a precarious combination of anonymity and teamwork. Crime takes hold where there is more technical talent than legitimate opportunity, and where authorities turn a blind eye—perhaps for a price. In the fight against cybercrime, understanding what drives people into this industry is as important as advanced security. Based on seven years of fieldwork from Eastern Europe to West Africa, Industry of Anonymity is a compelling and revealing study of a rational business model which, however much we might wish otherwise, has become a defining feature of the modern world.

Cybercrimes are often viewed as technical offenses that require technical solutions, such as antivirus programs or automated intrusion detection tools. However, these crimes are committed by individuals or networks of people which prey upon human victims and are detected and prosecuted by criminal justice personnel. As a result, human decision-making plays a substantial role in the course of an offence, the justice response, and policymakers' attempts to legislate against these crimes. This book focuses on the human factor in cybercrime: its offenders, victims, and parties involved in tackling cybercrime. The distinct nature of cybercrime has consequences for the entire spectrum of crime and raises myriad questions about the nature of offending and victimization. For example, are cybercriminals the same as traditional offenders, or are there new offender types with distinct characteristics and motives? What foreground and situational characteristics influence the decision-making process of offenders? Which personal and situational characteristics provide an increased or decreased risk of cybercrime victimization? This book brings together leading criminologists from around the world to consider these questions and examine all facets of victimization, offending, offender networks, and policy responses. Chapter 13 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

A comprehensive doctrinal analysis of cybercrime laws in four major common law jurisdictions: Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.

In Russia, there are people who earn their living trading in personal information belonging to American citizens. They maintain websites where one can buy names, addresses, and Social Security and credit card numbers. Cybercrime flourishes? Both transnationally and within our own borders. It is time to arm ourselves with the information we need to remain safe. Cybercrime: Criminal Threats from Cyberspace is intended to explain two things: what cybercrime is and why the average citizen should care about it. To accomplish that task, the book offers an overview of cybercrime and an in-depth discussion of the legal and policy issues surrounding it. Enhancing her narrative with real-life stories, author Susan W. Brenner traces the rise of cybercrime from mainframe computer hacking in the 1950s to the organized, professional, and often transnational cybercrime that has become the norm in the 21st century. She explains the many different types of computer-facilitated crime, including identity theft, stalking, extortion, and the use of viruses and worms to damage computers, and outlines and analyzes the challenges cybercrime poses for law enforcement officers at the national and international levels. Finally, she considers the inherent tension between improving law enforcement`s ability to pursue cybercriminals and protecting the privacy of U.S. citizens.

The first full-scale overview of cybercrime, law, and policy

This updated edition of a well-known comprehensive analysis of the criminalization of cyberattacks adds important new guidance to the legal framework on cybercrime, reflecting new legislation, technological developments, and the changing nature of cybercrime itself. The focus is not only on criminal law aspects but also on issues of data protection, jurisdiction, electronic evidence, enforcement, and digital forensics. It provides a thorough analysis of the legal regulation of attacks against information systems in the European, international, and comparative law contexts. Among the new and continuing aspects of cybersecurity covered are the following: the conflict of cybercrime investigation and prosecution with fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of expression; the 2016 Directive on security of network and information systems (NIS Directive); the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR); the role of national computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs); the European Union (EU) response to new technologies involving payment instruments, including virtual currencies and digital wallets; the EU Commission’s legislative proposals to enhance cross-border gathering of electronic evidence; internet service providers’ role in fighting cybercrime; measures combatting identity theft, spyware, and malware; states and legal persons as perpetrators of cybercrime; and the security and data breach notification as a compliance and transparency tool. Technical definitions, case laws, and analysis of both substantive law and procedural law contribute to a comprehensive understanding of cybercrime regulation and its current evolution in practice. Addressing a topic of growing importance in unprecedented detail, this new edition of a much-relied-upon resource will be welcomed by professionals and authorities dealing with cybercrime, including lawyers, judges, academics, security professionals, information technology experts, and law enforcement agencies.

This book advances a theoretically informed realist criminology of computer crime. Looking beyond current strategies of online crime control, this book argues for a new sort of policy that addresses the root causes of computer crime and criminality, reduces the harms experienced by the victims of such crimes, and does not unduly contribute to state and corporate power and surveillance. Drawing both on the proponents of realist criminology and on those who have leveled critiques of the approach, Steinmetz illustrates the contours of a realist criminology of computer crime by considering definitions of harm with online crime, the idiosyncrasies of online locality and community, the social relations of computer crime, the tension between piecemeal reform and structural changes, and other matters. Furthermore, Steinmetz surveys the methodological dimensions of computer crime research, offers a critique of positivist “computational criminology,” and posits an agenda for computer crime policy. Against Cybercrime is an essential reading for all those engaged with cybercrime, realist criminology, criminological theory, and social harm online.

This exciting and timely collection showcases recent work on Cybercrime by members of Uclan Cybercrime Research Unit [UCRU], directed by Dr Tim Owen at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. This book offers up-to-date perspectives on Cybercrime based upon a Realist social ontology, alongside suggestions for how research into Cybercrime might move beyond what can be seen as the main theoretical obstacles facing criminological theory: the stagnation of critical criminology and the nihilistic relativism of the postmodern and post-structuralist cultural turn. Organised into three sections; ‘Law and Order in Cyberspace’, ‘Gender and Deviance in Cyberspace’, and ‘Identity and Cyberspace’, this cutting-edge volume explores some of the most crucial issues we face today on the internet: grooming, gendered violence, freedom of speech and intellectual property crime. Providing unique new theory on Cybercrime, this book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of Criminology, Law, Sociology, Philosophy, Policing and Forensic Science, Information Technology and Journalism, in addition to professionals working within law and order agencies and the security services.

When it comes to computer crimes, the criminals got a big head start. But the law enforcement and IT security communities are now working diligently to develop the knowledge, skills, and tools to successfully investigate and prosecute Cybercrime cases. When the first edition of "Scene of the Cybercrime" published in 2002, it was one of the first books that educated IT security professionals and law enforcement how to fight Cybercrime. Over the past 5 years a great deal has changed in how computer crimes are perpetrated and subsequently investigated. Also, the IT security and law enforcement communities have dramatically improved their ability to deal with Cybercrime, largely as a result of increased spending and training. According to the 2006 Computer Security Institute's and FBI's joint Cybercrime report: 52% of companies reported unauthorized use of computer systems in the prior 12 months. Each of these incidents is a Cybecrime requiring a certain level of investigation and remediation. And in many cases, an investigation is mandates by federal compliance regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, or the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard. Scene of the Cybercrime, Second Edition is a completely revised and updated book which covers all of the technological, legal, and regulatory changes, which have occurred since the first edition. The book is written for dual audience; IT security professionals and members of law enforcement. It gives the technical experts a little peek into the law enforcement world, a highly structured environment where the "letter of the law" is paramount and procedures must be followed closely lest an investigation be contaminated and all the evidence collected rendered useless. It also provides law enforcement officers with an idea of some of the technical aspects of how cyber crimes are committed, and how technology can be used to track down and build a case against the criminals who commit them. Scene of the Cybercrime, Second Editions provides a roadmap that those on both sides of the table can use to navigate the legal and technical landscape to understand, prevent, detect, and successfully prosecute the criminal behavior that is as much a threat to the online community as "traditional" crime is to the neighborhoods in which we live. Also included is an all new chapter on Worldwide Forensics Acts and Laws. - Companion Web site provides custom tools and scripts, which readers can download for conducting digital, forensic investigations - Special chapters outline how Cybercrime investigations must be reported and investigated by corporate IT staff to meet federal mandates from Sarbanes Oxley, and the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard - Details forensic investigative techniques for the most common operating systems (Windows, Linux and UNIX) as well as cutting edge devices including iPods, Blackberries, and cell phones