On Feb. 12, 2016, a 70-year-old woman was sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge as she was lying in a hospital bed in Philadelphia. The woman was critically ill, but that didn't stop her from being the first person in U.S. history to be convicted of cyberstalking resulting in death.
Cybersecurity expert Edward McAndrew addressed cybercrime and digital warfare during a lecture at the University of Delaware that same month. He said, "We're facing the perfect cybercrime storm—great connectivity, enormous amounts of data, and open networks."
Learn more about the criminal charges you could be facing based on your online behavior:
Cybercrime Charges
With an unprecedented amount of data on the Internet (financial information, private images, business data), authorities are taking a firmer stance against people who commit crimes online. From stealing a person's credit card information and passwords to taking down an entire network, local and federal law enforcement agencies are getting better at catching (and prosecuting) cybercrime.
Cybercrime involves a number of offenses, including:
- Bullying
- Extortion
- Stalking
- Domestic violence
- Money laundering
- Identity theft
- Tax fraud
- Intellectual property theft
- Obstruction of justice
McAndrew noted that the physical and virtual worlds are becoming increasingly entwined. "Violent crimes on the street can now be solved with digital evidence," he said. He explained how the authorities have reached the point where they're relying on devices to tell stories and humans to "fill in the blanks."
Today, there are several agencies involved in fighting cybercrime, from the DOJ, to the SEC and FBI, to the FCC and FTC. They're collaborating to battle violent criminals, terrorists, thieves, financial frauds, and sexual predators.
Warfare Doesn't Level the Playing Field—It Turns It Upside-Down
According to McAndrew, the major power failure in the Ukraine may have been the first cyber-attack on an infrastructure system the world has ever seen. After the outage, there were articles on the Internet that asked if Russia was responsible for Ukraine's electricity.
McAndrew said this a new front in warfare. He said we're fighting a threat where someone who can't find us on the battlefield could beat us on the digital one.
If you're accused committing a cybercrime, reach out to a criminal defense attorney for an aggressive defense!
