Global Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Laws and Regulations: Issues and Challenges in the 21st Century

The global Internet and cyberspace age witness a new generation of cybercriminals, hackers, cybergangs, cyber terrorists, and cyber sexual harassers. This phenomenon, broadly defined as cybercrimes, is the focus of this book. The International Telecommunication Union's Global Cyber Security Index found that about 90 percent of the world's countries have enacted laws and regulations to control and combat cybercrime. This book has examined some of those cyber laws and regulations in 12 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, China, Russia, Japan, Singapore, Nigeria, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Different chapters of this book have found some common themes. First, in most of the countries of the world, there is an advancing process of legally criminalizing cybercrimes, including such behaviors as unauthorized access, use, and interception; damage and deletion of computer data; damage and destruction of computer networks; and dissemination and transportation of illegally obtained computer data. Second, there is high sensitivity in all countries studied about the security of the information infrastructure and their critical economic, political, and social infrastructures such as power plants, chemical industries, aviation systems, and electoral systems. Third, all forms of cybercrime committed by using the computer and the Internet are also defined as fraud and forgery, identity theft, cyber espionage, sexual harassment, cyber sexual extortion, online child pornography, and revenge pornography. One of the more critical themes that emerged is that no country defines cybersecurity as just a technical matter-a matter only of coding and decoding and encryption and decryption. Cybersecurity is also broadly perceived as a legal, political, organizational, and educational issue. It is perceived as a matter to be dealt with by a government in cooperation with international partners, potentially barring China and Russia. One of the other themes that emerged as a genuine concern is the rapid escalation of cyber sexual violence against women and minors. In most countries examined in this book, the policymakers and law enforcement believe that social media is partly responsible for increasing cyber sexual violence.