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Legal Measures
Cyber criminals
are an ever present menace in every country connected to the Internet.
Organized crime has been on the rise because the Internet has proved a
low risk, lucrative business. This is due to the fact that loopholes in
national and regional legislation still remain, making it difficult to
effectively track down criminals. The main problem is the lack of
international harmonization regarding cybercrime legislation.
Investigation and prosecution are difficult if the categorization of
crimes differs from country to country. Some efforts to address this
challenge have been undertaken, and although very valuable, they are
still insufficient. The Internet is an international communication tool
and consequently, any solution to secure it must be sought at the global
level.
ITU Cybercrime Legislation Resources
With its cybercrime
legislation resources and material, the ITU is working to assist
countries in understanding the legal aspects of cybersecurity
in order to move towards harmonizing legal
frameworks. Through these cybercrime
legislation resources, ITU is addressing the first of the seven
strategic goals of the GCA, which calls for the elaboration of
strategies for the development of cybercrime legislation that is
globally applicable and interoperable with existing national and
regional legislative measures. This activity also addresses the ITU-D
Study Group Q22/1 approach for organizing national cybersecurity
efforts, highlighting that establishing the appropriate legal
infrastructures is an integral component of a national cybersecurity
strategy.
The adoption by
all countries of appropriate legislation against the misuse of ICTs for
criminal or other purposes, including activities intended to affect the
integrity of national critical information infrastructures, is central
to achieving global cybersecurity. Since threats can originate anywhere
around the globe, the challenges are inherently international in scope
and require international cooperation, investigative assistance, and
common substantive and procedural provisions. Thus, it is important that
countries harmonize their legal frameworks to combat cybercrime and
facilitate international cooperation. The ITU cybercrime legislation
resources currently consist of two main deliverables, the ITU
publication titled Understanding Cybercrime: A Guide for Developing
Countries and the ITU Toolkit for Cybercrime Legislation
ITU Publication on
Understanding Cybercrime: A Guide for Developing Countries
The ITU publication
Understanding Cybercrime: A Guide for Developing Countries aims to
help developing countries better understand the national and
international implications of growing cyber-threats, assess the
requirements of existing national regional and international
instruments, and assist countries in establishing a sound legal
foundation.
The Guide provides a
comprehensive overview of the most relevant topics linked to the legal
aspects of cybercrime. In its approach, the Guide focuses on the demands
of developing countries. Due to the transnational dimension of
cybercrime, the legal instruments are the same for developing and
developed countries. However, the references used were selected for the
benefit of developing countries. The Guide provides a broad selection of
resources for a more in depth study of the different topics. Whenever
possible, publicly available sources were used, including many
free-of-charge editions of online law journals.
The Guide contains six main
chapters. After an Introduction (Chapter 1), the Guide provides an
overview of the phenomena of cybercrime (Chapter 2). This includes
descriptions of how crimes are committed and explanations of the most
widespread cybercrime offences such as hacking, identity theft and
denial-of-service attacks. The Guide also provides an overview of the
challenges as they relate to the investigation and prosecution of
cybercrime (Chapters 3 and 4). After a summary of some of the activities
undertaken by international and regional organizations in the fight
against cybercrime (Chapter 5), the Guide continues with an analysis of
different legal approaches with regard to substantive criminal law,
procedural law, international cooperation and the responsibility of
Internet Service Providers (Chapter 6), including examples of
international approaches as well as good-practice examples from national
solutions.
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