Crime, cyberspace and Covid-19: (Accelerated) displacement of opportunities and situational adaptation of cybercrime

Abstract

This paper addresses the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on cybercrime, gathering and critically evaluating the existing studies and adding some analyses of its own. The work suggests that during the lockdown, more than a shift of criminals from physical space to cyberspace, what has existed is, on the one hand, an adaptation of cybercriminals to the new opportunities for crime that were emerging in the context of Covid-19, and, on the other hand, a shift of opportunities to cyberspace as a result of the increased time and activities carried out on the Internet that could have effectively led to an increase in some cybercrimes. It is argued that this negative correlation of trends, of reduced crime on the streets and increased crime in cyberspace, is directly related to the shift in everyday activities resulting from digitisation, which has been taking place for decades. The Covid-19 crisis thus appears to be more than a cause but an accelerator of this process, and it is important to consider how this will affect future crime trends.