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CHAPTER 9
Understanding the situational awareness in cybercrimes
The
UKs Cyber Security Strategy (2011)
consists of four main objectives:
• Tackling cyber-crime and making the UK one of the most secure places in the
world to do business in cyberspace.
• Making the UK more resilient to cyber-attack and
better able to protect our
interests in cyberspace.
• Helping to shape an open, vibrant and stable cyberspace which the UK public
can use safely and that supports open societies.
• Building the UKs cross-cutting knowledge, skills and
capability to underpin all
our cyber security objectives.
The UK strategy involves focusing on individuals and businesses. The UK strategy
admits that the threats are changing but details the following as being current threats
in cyberspace:
• Criminals (fraud/identity theft)
• Other States (espionage/propaganda)
• Terrorists (propaganda/radicalize potential supporters/communicate/plan)
• Hacktivists (disruption/reputation management/financial damage/gaining
publicity)
The UK strategy also highlights the difficulty in targeting the perpetrators of cy-
bercrimes: “But with the borderless and anonymous
nature of the internet, precise
attribution is often difficult and the distinction between adversaries is increasingly
blurred” (2011, p. 16).
The EU Cybersecurity-Strategy of the Europe Union: An Open, Safe and Secure
Cyberspace (2013)
understandably considers the concerns of a number of countries
as
opposed to one, and therefore stresses the borderless multi-layered nature of the
internet. It has five key strategic priorities:
• Achieving cyber resilience
• Drastically reducing cybercrime
• Developing cyberdefence policy and capabilities
related to the Common
Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)
• Develop the industrial and technological resources for cybersecurity
• Establish a coherent international cyberspace policy for the European Union and
promote core EU values.
The different strategies highlight a need for a strong global network of shared in-
telligence and communication about cybercrimes. The
networks are not only the
responsibility of governments and experts but also industry and the wider society.
Strong partnerships, along with shared knowledge and information could strengthen
the plight against cybercrime and attacks which cost the global economy billions
each year (
McAfee, 2013
).
There are three different strategies for managing
cybercrime presented above;
however there are many more initiatives globally (for example see
Australia's 2009
or see
Canada's 2010
strategy). To create a strategy which extends across many