Information systems represent a major advance for our societies, but bring with them risks and vulnerabilities that we need to understand. Since the Internet has become a mass phenomenon, not one week has passed without media coverage of some scandal which is linked (either closely or more tenuously) to the fraudulent use of networks. The exponential rise of new communication technologies (of which the Internet is just one) has resulted in a transfer of mainstream activities from the ‘real’ world to ‘cyberspace’, a term invented by William Gibson in his book Neuromancer and sometimes used in the sense of a ‘virtual’ world.

The world Internet-using community should reach 1.5 billion in 2011, an increase of 36 per cent over 2006. This is the scale of what is at stake in terms of attacks on persons and goods; it needs to be dealt with on both the political and legal levels if our societies are to be preserved.

The Realities of Cybercrime

Cybercrime comes in many forms, which can be grouped into two main categories. On the one hand, these are offences in which information systems themselves are attacked; examples are non-authorised access to data or systems for illegal use. On the other, offences such as forgery, theft, fraud, stocking or receiving illegal content, defamation via online services, etc. Cybercrime can be defined as criminal activities carried out in cyberspace using Internet technology