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Institutional and Economic Foundations of Cybercrime Business Models

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The Global Cybercrime Industry

Abstract

Cybercrime business models are rapidly evolving. It is argued that cyber-criminals closely imitate business models of legitimate corporations. Cybercrime firms and legitimate businesses, however, differ in terms of the important sources of core competence. Legitimate businesses’ core processes are centered around creating the most value for customers. Most cyber-criminals’ core processes, however, involve extorting and defrauding prospective victims and minimizing the odds of getting caught. Cyber-criminals and legitimate businesses also differ in terms of the legitimacy related to regulative institutions and inter-organizational arrangements. This chapter disentangles the mechanisms behind the cybercrime business models and examines the contexts and processes associated with such models.

Four pence – that’s the price of your credit card number (a headline in independent.co.uk, Cavaglieri, 2009).

Once you build a better mousetrap, hackers build better mice (Lance Hayden, a manager of professional services in the Cisco Secure Consulting Services group, cf. Grimes, 2001).

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  1. Bryan School of Business and Economics, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, 27402-6165, USA

    Dr. Nir Kshetri

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Kshetri, N. (2010). Institutional and Economic Foundations of Cybercrime Business Models. In: The Global Cybercrime Industry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11522-6_9

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