Abstract
This chapter draws upon literatures on psychology, economics, international relation, and warfare to propose a framework to explain international heterogeneity in cybercrimes. We found that countries across the world differ in terms of regulative, normative, and cognitive legitimacy to different types of web attacks. Cyber-wars and crimes are also functions of the stocks of hacking skills relative to the availability of economic opportunities. An attacking unit’s selection criteria for the target network include symbolic significance and criticalness, degree of digitization of values, and weakness in defense mechanisms.
Why should an Indonesian get arrested for damaging [an] American business? (an Indonesian hacker, cf. Shubert, 2003).
“We are ready to devote anything to our motherland, including our lives,” message left by Chinese hackers on several American websites in a 2001 cyber war with American hackers (cf. Smith, 2001).
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Kshetri, N. (2010). Global Heterogeneity in the Pattern of the Cybercrime Industry. In: The Global Cybercrime Industry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11522-6_7
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