Cybercrime & Cybercriminals: An Overview of the Taiwan Experience

This paper explores the increasing number of cybercrime cases in Taiwan and examines the demographic characteristics of those responsible for this criminal activity. The report is based upon data taken from the Criminal Investigation Bureau of Taiwan’s cybercrime database over the interval of 1999 through 2004. The paper defines cybercrime, analyses cybercrime case statistics and examines profiles of cybercrime suspects’ characteristics. The findings show that of all types of cybercrimes committed over the past six years, the top five are distributing messages regarding sex trading or trading sex on the Internet, Internet fraud, larceny, cyber piracy and cyber pornography. As for suspect characteristics, the findings show that 81.1% were male; 45.5% had some senior high school; 63.1% acted independently; 23.7% were currently enrolled students; and 29.1% were in the 18-23 age bracket, which was the majority group. For those enrolled student cybercrime suspects, the findings show that the percentage of junior high school and senior high school student suspects constituted 69.0% (2002), 76.1% (2003) and 62.7% (2004) of cybercrime suspects in their respective years. The high rate shows that the number of currently enrolled students suspected of involvement in cybercrime is cause for concern. Finally, this paper offers recommendations to governments, social agencies, schools, and researchers in their efforts to reduce cybercrime. Index Term—cybercrime, computer crime.