Deterrence in Cyberspace: An Interdisciplinary Review of the Empirical Literature

The popularity of the deterrence perspective across multiple scientific disciplines has sparked a lively debate regarding its relevance in influencing both offenders and targets in cyberspace. Unfortunately, due to the invisible borders between academic disciplines, most of the published literature on deterrence in cyberspace is confined within unique scientific disciplines. This chapter therefore provides an interdisciplinary review of the issue of deterrence in cyberspace. It begins with a short overview of the deterrence perspective, presenting the ongoing debates concerning the relevance of deterrence pillars in influencing cybercriminals’ and cyberattackers’ operations in cyberspace. It then reviews the existing scientific evidence assessing various aspects of deterrence in the context of several disciplines: criminology, law, information systems, and political science. This chapter ends with a few policy implications and proposed directions for future interdisciplinary academic research

Towards an Economic Approach to Crime and Prevention

Towards an economic approach to crime and preventio

Cyber-Dependent Crimes: An Interdisciplinary Review

Online crime has increased in severity and frequency over the past two decades. However, although several scientific disciplines have commonly employed criminological theories to explain this phenomenon, mainstream criminology has devoted relatively scant attention to the investigation of cyber-criminals and their victims. Drawing on this assumption that more criminological attention should be given to this important type of crime, this article presents an interdisciplinary review of the current state of research on cyber-dependent crimes (i.e., crimes that require the use of computer technology to exist, such as hacking). We begin with a brief discussion of the ecosystem of cyber-dependent crimes and the key actors who operate within it, including the online offenders and enablers, targets and victims, and guardians. Next, we review empirical scholarship that pertains to each actor while distinguishing between nontheoretical research and theoretically driven studies. We then detail methodological and theoretical avenues that should be pursued by future research and discuss why criminological research should lead policy initiatives and guide the design of technical tools that improve the scientific community’s ability to generate a safer and more secure cyber-environment. We conclude by discussing potential ways in which cyber-dependent crime research could pave the way for the advancement of mainstream criminological theory and research