The cybercrime ecosystem: Online innovation in the shadows?

With the growing sophistication and use of information technology, the past decade has witnessed a major growth in financial cybercrime. This paper focuses specifically on credit card fraud and identity theft, examining the globalisation of these activities within a ‘digital ecosystem’ conceptual framework. The relevance of concepts and analytical tools typically used to study legitimate businesses, such as value chains, dynamic capabilities and business models, is explored and tested for their relevance in understanding the scale and nature of illegal activities which are dependant upon innovation and the collective activities of global participants. It is argued that developing a better understanding of how such illegal activities are organised and operate will assist policy makers, law enforcement agencies and security firms to identify trends and concentrate limited resources in a most effective manner.

► Innovations within cybercrime represent the cutting edge of global criminal activity.
► Economic recession plus ICT skill surplus creates opportunities for cybercrime.
► Cybercriminals are increasingly operating in a business ecosystem.