Cybersecurity Beyond Borders
Over the past two decades, the world has experienced exponential growth in technology. With the many benefits, people are increasingly becoming dependent on technology as time goes by. From industrial automation to web applications, there has been a paradigm shift in the way we live. However, technology also brings tremendous danger to people who use them. There is a question of the safety of private information and that is where cybersecurity laws come in.
While countries spend large sums in funding – the United States spends 19 billion dollars approximately every year – the number of attacks continues to increase every year (Ellen, 2004). Cybersecurity attempts to mitigate cyberattacks, cybercrime, and cyber terrorists. Therefore, cybersecurity laws tend to counter attacks and provide protection to users of technology. Since virtually most companies possess online components, cybersecurity law cuts across all businesses.
The laws and regulation of cybersecurity
The laws and regulations of cybersecurity encompass the common issues that emanate from cyber threats. These issues emphasize the jurisdiction of law enforcement, criminal activity, insurance matters, and corporate governance. In the 20th century, the laws and regulations of cybersecurity were not considered to be vital as the cybercrimes committed were not damaging compared to this century. During that time, the laws were synonymous with software piracy and copyright protection laws. However, current times demand high protection since the threats have escalated to serious cybercrimes such as the deployment of cybercrime to treason. Taking this into consideration, the world needs regulations that can counter these crimes. The increase in the legislation seen throughout the past decade has been due to the rise in threats. (Post, 2015)
Current Cybersecurity Laws
The current cybersecurity laws not only issue significant fines of up to 5 million dollars but also serving lengthy jail terms. Although this appears to curb these attacks, the damage done by these attacks is usually more serious than these penalties. In the United States, the governments were not aware of the cyberattacks on companies. After the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, everything changed. Congress passed legislation that allowed institutions to share the attack information with the government as evidence for prosecution. However, to solve the issue of cross-border attacks the industry must come into the picture. The industry spans beyond international borders. Therefore, to understand how to mitigate these acts of crime internationally, it is important to assess the involvement of industry in countering cyberattacks.
Industry Cybersecurity Policies
While law enforcement has had little success in fighting cybercrime, its limitations have motivated the technology companies and regulatory bodies to have a significant role in managing cyberspace by regulating user activity. In some cases, the industry collaborates with law enforcement to achieve successful counter-attacks; whereas, in other cases, there is a reflection of a direct attempt by private companies to control online activities. There is a range of examples where private entities complicate the engagement in cyber-trespass, theft, and deception. A noteworthy example consists of the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and the United Kingdom’s Federation against Copyright Theft (FACT) trying to reduce the piracy rate. As these organizations represent the interest of the artist, record labels, and producers, they consistently lobby lawmakers to update legislation of intellectual property theft and piracy. In conjunction with Internet Service Providers (ISP), they work to identify individuals whose IP addresses are associated with attempts of piracy through file-sharing services to issue cease letters (Nhan 2013). While this does not lead to a criminal charge against the perpetrator, it is considered to be a noninvasive deterrent method to keep the financial and civil interests of copyright holders.
Although organizations have made attempts to utilize unique strategies to slow the distribution of pirated materials, success has been limited. For example, owners of intellectual property produce junk information available for download in online file-sharing services. This leads a pirate to download unusable files, spending more time to recognize the actual content of the files. This strategy was employed by the Weinstein Company in 2007 after they discovered that their movie Sicko had leaked online. The company hired a MediaDefender to place multiple unusable files on online file-sharing services such as BitTorrent to slow down the process of identifying the actual pirated material (TVTechnology, 2007).
Another extreme example of corporates trying to curb piracy included the use of distributed denial service (DDoS) attacks on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. Indian film studios hired AiPlex Software Company to perform DDoS attacks (Nhan, 2013).
Technical expertise and security vendors can provide techniques to influence cyberattacks as well as intelligence about cybercriminal activities. Law enforcement, government, and industry can use security vendors’ products to observe attacks on targets categorized as high profile in real-time (Holt and Bossler, 2016). These vendors can analyze and evaluate criminal actors’ behaviors and monitor potential attacks that spring from other countries and military organizations. Thus, vendors can publish information about new attack methods together with the activities performed by hackers to educate the larger security community and the general public through acquiring information from analyses and evaluations.
The exponential rise in cyberattacks to target organizations and individuals over the past twenty years has led to the establishment of insurance and monitoring services for compensation in case of a damaging attack.
Conclusion
It is important for law enforcement, policy-makers, and industry to examine the utility of internet attacks to maintain order in a society enveloped in technology. Identifying and expanding cooperative relations between the private sector and state law enforcement is crucial (Brenner, 2008). Whether cybercrime intervention strategies emanate from the industry or law enforcement, it is essential that criminology should start evaluating them. Crime reduction strategies of the real-world can be researched to mirror that of the cyberspace to determine the techniques that can work without committing a public offense. Research can also cover the public perception of the legitimacy of extralegal strategies applied by the industry to curb any offense and affect law enforcement efficacy and value. The lack of such research can give rise to controversies about the confidence in government, law enforcement, and industry.
Reference
Brenner, S. W. (2008). Cyberthreats: The emerging fault lines of the nation state. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Ellen, S. P. (2004). Cybercrime: National, Transnational, or. Georgia State University College of Law.
Holt, T. J., & Adam, M. B. (2012). Predictors of patrol officer interest in cybercrime training and investigation in selected United States police departments. l. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, pp. 15:464–72 .
Nhan, J. (2013). The evolution of online piracy: Challenge and response. In Crime on-line: Causes,correlates, and context, ed. T. J. Holt . Raleigh, NC: Carolina Academic Press, , 61–80.
Post, D. R. (2015). Law And Borders: The Rise of Law in Cyberspace. 48 Stanford Law Review.
TVTechnology. (2007., June 21). Michael Moore’s “Sicko” combats leaks on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.tvtechnology.com.
