criminal activity has always been part of a
cat-and-mouse game with Justice
cyber domain as well, where crime discovered a new and broad field for its
perpetration. Never was it so easy to find a new victim or a group of victims
they are in reach of a criminal's fingers and never was it so easy for criminals
to hide their whereabouts and identities.
have evolved with time, so have the modus operandi of cyber criminals. We
need to admit that we are facing some interesting challenges. No, we are not
talking about the classic "It wasn't me, it was a Trojan in my computer!" argument.
We are talking about a wealth of hiding mechanisms like anonymous proxies,
compromised computers, public internet cafes (virtually, we have internet
access everywhere!) and anonymity networks like Tor, i2p and Freenet, all of
them being misused and making life harder for law enforcement. Criminals
are enjoying all these means with a unique sense of freedom and impunity to
promote a black market and sell drugs, guns, criminal services, organ trafficking
and share child pornography.
"cyber offenders" in this article and related literature. This group of individuals
includes not only typical cyber criminals, but also state-sponsored actors
who engage in attacks against foreign critical infrastructures as well hacktivists
spreading their word and launching DDoS attacks against their target of choice.
It does not matter which class of individual we are dealing with. When we need
to figure out who is behind that masked IP address in our log files or who is
behind that fake Twitter account, the "attribution problem" rises.
overlooking all those roots of criminal activity offender activity here - and
how they usually can be manifested in a crime scene. The cyber offender is
clearly enjoying some advantages, so we need to adapt ourselves. As said by
Collin Williams in the welcome message of this magazine's first issue, "we
must re-think our approach to the pursuit of the safety and security of the human
experience in the cyber domain." It makes sense here.
in broad terms) is still an act that has at least a minimum of planning, counts on
at least a minimum of resources and it is committed by an individual or a group
of individuals with specific motivations. We should agree that most methods and
tools are new on cybercrimes, but when we are talking about revenge, activism,