Cybercrime: an introduction

This course will run as an intensive in 2025 with face-to-face teaching from 1-12 September 2025. Cybercrime is now commonplace and presents new challenges in the prevention and detection of crime. Drawing on a broad introduction to the history, functions and technologies of the Internet this course addresses issues of prevention and regulation and also describes the evolution of criminal activities involving computers. Illustrative topics will include identify theft, spam, malware, phishing, fraud, and illicit drug market facilitated by the dark net. Students will gain an understanding of common forms of cybercriminal activity and the technological and 'social engineering' methods used to undertake such crimes. Current methods to prevent, investigate and detect computer-related offences, using case-based and problem based learning approaches, will be used to illustrate practical, legal and regulatory measures available to counter its impacts.