3/17/2020 cybercrime | Definition, Statistics, & Examples | Britannica

Cybercrime
LAW

WRITTEN BY: Michael Aaron Dennis

See Article History

Alternative Title: computer crime

Cybercrime, also called computer crime, the use of a computer as an instrument to

BRITANNICA
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further illegal ends, such as committing fraud, traf cking in child pornography and
intellectual property, stealing identities, or violating privacy. Cybercrime, especially
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through the Internet, has grown in importance as the computer has become central to
commerce, entertainment, and government.

Because of the early and widespread adoption of computers and the Internet in the
United States, most of the earliest victims and villains of cybercrime were Americans. By
the 21st century, though, hardly a hamlet remained anywhere in the world that had not
been touched by cybercrime of one sort or another.

De ning Cybercrime
New technologies create new criminal opportunities but few new types of crime. What
distinguishes cybercrime from traditional criminal activity? Obviously, one difference is
the use of the digital computer, but technology alone is insuf cient for any distinction
that might exist between different realms of criminal activity. Criminals do not need a
computer to commit fraud, traf c in child pornography and intellectual property, steal an
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identity, or violate someone’s privacy. All those activities existed before the “cyber” pre x
became ubiquitous. Cybercrime, especially involving the Internet, represents an
extension of existing criminal behaviour alongside some novel illegal activities.

Most cybercrime is an attack on information about individuals, corporations, or

governments. Although the attacks do not take place on a physical body, they do take
place on the personal or corporate virtual body, which is the set of informational
attributes that de ne people and institutions on the Internet. In other words, in the
digital age our virtual identities are essential elements of everyday life: we are a bundle of
numbers and identi ers in multiple computer databases owned by governments and
corporations. Cybercrime highlights the centrality of networked computers in our lives, as
well as the fragility of such seemingly solid facts as individual identity.

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An important aspect of cybercrime is its nonlocal character: actions can occur in

jurisdictions separated by vast distances. This poses severe problems for law enforcement
since previously local or even national crimes now require international cooperation. For

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example, if a person accesses child pornography located on a computer in a country that

does not ban child pornography, is that individual committing a crime in a nation where
such materials are illegal? Where exactly does cybercrime take place? Cyberspace is
simply a richer version of the space where a telephone conversation takes place,
somewhere between the two people having the conversation. As a planet-spanning
network, the Internet offers criminals multiple hiding places in the real world as well as in
the network itself. However, just as individuals walking on the ground leave marks that a
skilled tracker can follow, cybercriminals leave clues as to their identity and location,
despite their best efforts to cover their tracks. In order to follow such clues across national
boundaries, though, international cybercrime treaties must be rati ed.

In 1996 the Council of Europe, together with government representatives from the United
States, Canada, and Japan, drafted a preliminary international treaty covering computer
crime. Around the world, civil libertarian groups immediately protested provisions in the
treaty requiring Internet service providers (ISPs) to store information on their customers’
transactions and to turn this information over on demand. Work on the treaty proceeded
nevertheless, and on November 23, 2001, the Council of Europe Convention on
Cybercrime was signed by 30 states. The convention came into effect in 2004. Additional
protocols, covering terrorist activities and racist and xenophobic cybercrimes, were
proposed in 2002 and came into effect in 2006. In addition, various national laws, such as
the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, have expanded law enforcement’s power to monitor and
protect computer networks.

Types Of Cybercrime

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Cybercrime ranges across a spectrum of activities. At one end are crimes that involve
fundamental breaches of personal or corporate privacy, such as assaults on the integrity
of information held in digital depositories and the use of illegally obtained digital
information to blackmail a rm or individual. Also at this end of the spectrum is the
growing crime of identity theft. Midway along the spectrum lie transaction-based crimes
such as fraud, traf cking in child pornography, digital piracy, money laundering, and
counterfeiting. These are speci c crimes with speci c victims, but the criminal hides in
the relative anonymity provided by the Internet. Another part of this type of crime
involves individuals within corporations or government bureaucracies deliberately
altering data for either pro t or political objectives. At the other end of the spectrum are
those crimes that involve attempts to disrupt the actual workings of the Internet. These
range from spam, hacking, and denial of service attacks against speci c sites to acts of
cyberterrorism—that is, the use of the Internet to cause public disturbances and even
death. Cyberterrorism focuses upon the use of the Internet by nonstate actors to affect a
nation’s economic and technological infrastructure. Since the September 11 attacks of
2001, public awareness of the threat of cyberterrorism has grown dramatically.

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Cybercrime
QUICK FACTS

KEY PEOPLE
Bruce Sterling

RELATED TOPICS
Computer
Crime
Internet
Telecommunication
Piracy
Identity theft
Cyberspace
Denial of service attack
Spam
Zombie computer

DID YOU KNOW?

The FBI created a Cyber Most
Wanted List in 2014 that grew to
include 42 groups and individuals
by 2018.
The average cost of an American
corporate data breach is almost $8
million.

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