The Corporatisation of Cybercrime

This paper examines the corporatisation of cybercrime from the early days of hacking, with its ideological and social concerns, to the increasing organisation and focus on profit evident in contemporary times. It draws on interviews carried out with former cybercriminals, law enforcement agents and technology company members, as well as relevant legal documents. The paper proceeds in three main sections. The first section looks at theoretical issues associated with the process of corporatisation. In particular, it addresses potentially relevant models of corporatisation found in cases of organised crime groups, such as street gangs. The second section charts the development of cybercrime from the origins of hacking to the contemporary situation. This sees a shift from activity that was largely informal, focussed on ideological and social concerns, and was not illegal at the time to the present day where cybercrime has grown to incorporate a large, illicit and somewhat organised industry, heavily driven by profit. A core part of this section is trying to account for how this shift took place. The final section assesses what level of corporatisation cybercrime has actually attained in the face of the challenges of anonymity, geographical dispersion and reduced enforcement avenues on the Internet. This also includes a comparison to “offline” criminal groups discussed in the first section.