ABSTRACT
This chapter puts the spectacle of cybercrime to one side and draws upon existing and recent research to explore the use of the internet as a conduit for transnational organized criminal activity presently. It examines why cybercrimes are different and at how they can be defined. The chapter explores three distinct dimensions of cybercrime to introduce a language framework for explaining its variants and applies the framework to a case study of ransomware as a modern transnational organized advanced cybercrime currently of concern to the governments of nation states. Cyberspace is the environment in which cybercrime takes place and has been written about many times, but briefly, the internet’s qualities that transform human behaviour are also reflected in transforming criminal behaviour into cybercrimes. The final dimension of cybercrime is the issue of who the victim groups are in terms of their wealth, power, and position, each of which is a factor that can motivate offenders.
