International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 56

A (Guided) Tour of the Digital Wild West
France: The Current Digital Threat
A
number of sources provide information on the state of cybercrime in
France. Despite their varied study populations and calculation methods,
a dominant theme emerges: that France has not been spared by the cyber
predators—far from it. The three countries most affected by cybercrime are, in order,
the United States, France, and Russia. And the situation appears to be getting
worse.
• In 2017, the INHESJ and the ONDRP 3 published the results of a survey they
had carried out in France on quality of life and security. Using 2016 data on
victims of crime and perceptions regarding matters of security, it showed that
the number of victims of fraudulent payments from bank accounts rose from
approximately 500,000 in 2010 (1.8 percent of the population) to around 1.21
million victims (4.3 percent of the population) in 2016. Thirty-four percent of
these fraudulent payments were for less than 100 euros, while eighteen percent
were for more than 1000 euros.
• In 2017, DEMISC, 4 which reports to the gendarmerie, amassed 63,500 files
involving 320,000 victims, a 32 percent increase on 2016. These files concern
every kind of problem relating to cyberspace and new information and communication
technologies, including theft and fraud (67 percent of the total),
identity fraud, use of ransomware, phone hacking, theft of personal data (email
addresses, passwords, and banking security details), fake technical support
rackets and a range of cyber incursions, child pornography, and glorification
of terrorism.
Conclusion
Until cybersecurity engineers begin to understand the predatory nature of
GAFA, their efforts—while tactically useful—will be as effective at the
strategic level as taking a knife to a gunfight against a trigger-happy sadist,
and the impact of cybersecurity will be little more than cosmetic. But calls for
effective cybersecurity in an increasingly computerized and interconnected world
are intensifying. Expert opinion underlines this:
There is very definitely a demand, from people in many countries
around the world, for a return to a shared order, to established
3 INHESJ: L’Institut national des hautes études de la sécurité et de la justice (French National Institute
for Advanced Studies in Security and Justice). ONDRP: L’Observatoire national de la délinquance
et des réponses pénales (French National Observatory on Crime and Criminal Justice).
4 DEMISC: Délégation ministérielle aux industries de sécurité et à la lutte contre les cybermenaces
(Ministerial Delegation to the Security Industries and the Fight against Cyberthreats).
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