Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism

41
 
Conclusion
intelligence agencies of government, regarded as “higher policing” activity within 
the secret and sensitive domain of nation security. The primacy afforded to the intel-
ligence apparatus of governments to tackle terrorism therefore means that countering 
terrorism is different to investigating other types of criminality. The potential impact 
on a nation’s security is why terrorism, in all of its forms, requires a covert, pre-
emptive and intelligence-led approach to prevent it.
While it is important for the cyber investigator to distinguish between crime and 
terrorism, it must also be recognized that both cyber crime and cyber terrorism inves-
tigations are very different to other types of traditional criminal investigations. There 
are three key differences to consider, first of all, cyber investigations have a global 
reach. Every major cyber crime or cyber terrorism investigation has the potential for 
enquiries to be conducted in multiple locations. One enquiry for one single cyber ter-
rorist for example, may lead investigators to several police jurisdictions in separate re-
gions of the same country and then to numerous countries in Europe, the Middle East, 
Africa and around the world as investigators pursue lines of enquiry. Secondly, the 
scale of an investigation can rapidly grow as multiple victims and suspects are identi-
fied residing anywhere in the world. To resource this level of investigation where there 
is a critical requirement for intelligence and evidence capture can quickly go beyond 
the capacity of traditional investigative teams established for the most serious of crim-
inal offences. Thirdly, the complexity of such an investigation is not only evident in 
the cross-border of trans-national protocols but that intelligence and evidence is being 
collected simultaneously. Evidence is required to support successful prosecutions and 
intelligence may be required urgently to support ongoing covert operations for intel-
ligence agencies around the world (
Staniforth and PNLD, 2009
).
CONCLUSION
The impact of cyber crime and cyber terrorism has forced intelligence and law 
enforcement agencies across the world to enter into a new era of collaboration to 
effectively tackle cyber threats together. Despite cyber investigations having reach, 
scale and complexity beyond that experienced in other large-scale enquiries, their 
effectiveness relies upon thorough investigative police work. This chapter serves to 
illustrate that although investigators in specialist cyber crime and counter-terrorism 
units do have unique skills and abilities to perform their roles, it is their attention to 
detail combined with a professional and practical application to their role as an inves-
tigator which is critical to their success. Focusing upon the core investigative tools 
and techniques described in this chapter is essential for the effective investigation of 
cyber crime and cyber terrorism.
Cyber crime shall continue to evolve at a rapid pace and all security practitioners 
must recognize that they are now operating in a world of low impact, multiple victim 
crimes where bank robbers no longer have to plan meticulously the one theft of a 
million dollars; new technological capabilities mean that one person can now com-
mit millions of robberies of one dollar each (
Wall, 2007
). Paradoxically, effective 

---