BotNet News

Cybercrime is a broad term used to describe various crimes that take place on the Internet. It encompasses a range of criminal behaviors including identity theft, ransomware attacks and hacking.

Despite the pervasiveness of cyberspace, there is an absence of a clear definition of cybercrime that reflects current practices and scholarly research in the field. This is a critical issue as many cybercriminals are non-local and conduct their crimes in jurisdictions far away from the actual victims.

In this regard, a thorough review of the cybercrime literature is needed. The literature includes a wide range of definitions, typologies and taxonomies that are currently being applied in academia and industry.

Working definitions originating from the academic and legal communities have been proposed, but are often criticized for their disciplinary biases. These definitions are also not universally accepted; therefore, the lack of a single unified definition of cybercrime can pose serious problems for criminologists who are attempting to develop comprehensive classification systems [2,36].

Typologies and taxonomies (e.g., two-factor categorizations and spectrum classification systems) are also used to differentiate between types of cybercrimes. However, these categories are arguably overly simplistic.

Simple categorizations and two-factor classification systems may be useful for distinguishing between different types of cybercrime; however, they do not reflect the complex nature of crime or the extent to which it is dependent on technology. The spectrum approach is more sophisticated and incorporates more aspects of the crime in order to provide a more accurate classification system.