Organized Cybercrime and National Security

Abstract

While much cybercrime is committed by individuals acting alone, a signi!cant amount is accomplished by offenders acting in concert. These groups have tended to vary signi!cantly in terms of their structures, their goals, the criminal activities in which they engage, and their organizational life courses. The nature of these collectivities, and the question of whether organized cybercrime constitutes a national security threat, are the subjects of this chapter. The answer will depend on one’s de!nitions of “national security” and “organized cybercrime.” Each of these concepts is problematic; the meaning of national security has been stretched signi!cantly in recent years, while conceptions of organized crime (terrestrial or in cyberspace) have been overly narrow. The chapter concludes that some forms of organized cybercrime can indeed threaten national security, both in a more conventional sense and in ways previously overlooked.