David Wall (Professor, Department of Criminology, Durham University)
In recent years a number of changes have occurred in the cybercrime threat landscape which constitute a step change in the level of danger posed by cybercrimes to individual, organisational and national security. These changes largely arise out of the surveillant nature of new networked technologies and require deeper understanding of them if appropriate forms of action are to be taken to mitigate the main threats. Malware such as Zeus, SpyEye, Stuxnet, and scareware (fake AV) each display new levels of threat as well as advanced sophistication and organisation in terms of their design, construction and delivery. During the same time frame we have also witnessed the rising social significance of social network media which has had the effect of increasing the prosumption of networked services, but also encouraging whistleblowing (Wikileaks) ad flashmobbing. Both also have implications for the organization of cybercrime. In the first part I shall briefly look at how the cybercrime threat has changed. In the second part I shall then look at how surveillant technology has created new automated threats. In part three, I shall look at how the surveillant aspects of social media technologies have mediated social behaviours. In part four, I shall briefly discuss how those same technologies can be turned on their head and used for policing purposes. Finally, I shall outline some of the research issues that the new networked technologies present to us.
The Surveillance Studies Centre
c/o David Murakami Wood
Department of Criminology
University of Ottawa
Canada