Cybercrime In Cyprus

Cybercrime in Cyprus

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GEORGIA LEONIDOU

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Cybercrime is any criminal act carried out via electronic communication systems and information technology systems or against this kind of systems and communication networks. Cybercrime tends to increase due to the anonymity of the internet. There are different categories of cybercrime. According to Singleton (2013), the top five cybercrimes are tax-refund fraud, corporate account takeover, identity theft, theft of sensitive data and theft of intellectual property. Furthermore, there are also other types of cybercrime such as cyber terrorism, crimes against communication systems and information technology and publication of illegal content such as child pornography. However,

Beyond this, however, computer-related acts for personal or financial gain or harm, including forms of identity-related crime, and computer content-related acts (all of which fall within a wider meaning of the term ‘cybercrime’) do not lend themselves easily to efforts to arrive at legal definitions of the aggregate term. Certain definitions are required for the core of cybercrime acts. However, a ‘definition’ of cybercrime is not as relevant for other purposes, such as defining the scope of specialized investigative and international cooperation powers, which are better focused on electronic evidence for any crime, rather than a broad, artificial ‘cybercrime’

Cybercrime in Cyprus is fast-growing as technology advances. Even though Cyprus signed the Council of Europe’s convention on Cybercrime in 2001, there was not a special office investigating cybercrime, until 2007 when the first Anti-Cybercrime Office was established. From the first moment of its operation the office has demonstrated enviable effort in the combat with cybercrime and developed in all sectors.

In order to combat cybercrime there are some features that the police should be aware of because the investigation of cybercrime is complexed and it requires specialised knowledge and specific equipment. The cybercriminal differs from the common criminal because he/she must have computer knowledge and technical skills. In Cyprus according to