Major cybercrime research project concludes

During its three-year progress, research by Professor Julia Davidson and Professor Mary Aiken of the Institute for Connected Communities at the University of East London examined the human and technical drivers of cybercrime in reports, conferences, workshops, webinars and journal articles.

More than 150 people attended its final conference in-person in Valencia in March and another 240 people online. They heard about the project’s survey of just under  8,000 young people in nine European countries which found that two thirds (69 per cent) of European youth surveyed reported committing at least one form of cybercrime or online harm or risk taking, and just under half reported to have engaged in criminal behaviour online.

The project investigated cybercrime-as-a-service and developed tools that law enforcement authorities could use to detect cyber attacks. It conducted a comparative analysis of cybercrime legislation and policies across eight different Member States and made recommendations for greater harmonisation. It researched the costs, both financial and societal, of cybercrime and made recommendations to the EC for enabling more research on such costs, as many different estimates abound in the literature, and there are no standards nor criteria about the factors that should be taken into account in a socio-economic assessment of cybercrime. Such an assessment will help policymakers give an appropriate priority to tackling cybercrime. 

Mary Aiken, Professor of Forensic Cyberpsychology at UEL, commented,

Our human and technical drivers of cybercrime research findings have informed an innovative evidence-based approach to tackling Juvenile cyber delinquency and criminality. Additionally, our work will empower young people to develop their tech skills in positive, constructive and legal ways, and in doing so help to build a safer and more secure cyberspace for all.”

Professor of Criminology at UEL, Julia Davidson added, “Our findings focus for the first time upon youth cybercrime and online risk-taking both at national and EU level, the findings have important implications for youth and online safeguarding industry, law enforcement and educational practice and also for  policy in the context of the Online Safety Bill and the EU Better Internet for Children Programme which aims to empower young people in the digital world.“

David Wright, Trilateral’s Chief Research Officer and coordinator of the project said, “CC-DRIVER used a multidisciplinary approach from the domains of psychology, criminology, anthropology, neurobiology and cyberpsychology to investigate, identify, understand and explain drivers of new forms of criminality. It focused on human factors that may determine behaviours such as cyber juvenile delinquency and adolescent criminal hacking. Our consortium investigated ‘cybercrime-as-a-service’, its modalities, purveyors and trends so that Member States, stakeholders and citizens have a shared view of the dimensions of cyber criminality, its impact on our society and economy and what we, collectively and individually, can do to overcome them.”

The CC-DRIVER consortium consisted of 13 partners from nine countries. Partners included Trilateral Research (UK), F-Secure (now WithSecure, Finland), FORTH (Greece), Simavi (Romania), Polícia Judiciaría (Portugal), the University of Applied Sciences for Public Service in Bavaria, Department Police (Germany), the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), KEMEA (Greece), the University of East London (UK), the Information Security Forum (UK), Privanova (France) and the Hellenic Police (Greece).

Researchers included: Kirsty Phillips, Ruby Farr and Dr Ainul Hanafiah at the ICC at UEL.

For more information on the International Summit visit the CC-DRIVER website.

For more information on the CC-DRIVER project visit:

• Twitter: @CcdriverH2020
• LinkedIn: CC-DRIVER Project