NESTA Crime Online - University of Brighton Repository

interconnected with each other for their mutual survival and effectiveness. 114 Innovation
is central to the creation, development and life of a business ecosystem and is a
“catalysing element for the evolution of the ecosystem.” 115
Cybercriminals are increasingly operating in a business ecosystem in much the same
way that companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and Hewlett Packard have successfully
used the business ecosystem to define and establish their alliances and networks to sell
their products and services. In particular, the traditional, ethnocentric organisational
structures of criminal organisations have increasingly eroded to allow new sets of actors
to make common cause, through networking and sub-contracting for example. As with
companies, the cybercriminal ecosystem has done so by acquiring new partners,
knowledge, ideas and skills to fuel innovation and thereby to expand the range of its
cybercrime activities.
In a business ecosystem, the ‘collective health’ of other actors who influence the
creation and delivery of the product or service is fundamental to a company’s success. 116
In other words, there has to be innovation for a business ecosystem to thrive. “They
[businesses] operate in a business environment of shared fates and business models,
and see their ecosystems as helping them become more resilient to market changes… to
achieve market success and sustain performance.” 117 Similarly, the success of cyber-
criminal activities require innovation to which individual criminals may not have be
capable of undertaking productively. For instance, cybercriminals have continually to
develop or acquire more sophisticated malicious software, if they are to infect more
computer networks and become more effective and astute in stealing data and
perpetrating credit card fraud. Moreover, they must remain adept at overcoming the
preventative obstacles and the risk of identification and detection.
114 M. Iansiti, and R Levien, (2004), “Strategy as ecology”. Harvard Business Review, pp 68-78.
115 J.F. Moore, (1996), The Death of Competition: Leadership and Strategy in the Age of Business Ecosystem.
Harper Business, New York, as cited in A. Corallo, A., G. Passiante, A. Prencipe, (2007), The Digital Business
Ecosystem. Cheltenham: (Eds) Edward Elgar.
116 M. Iansiti, and R Levien, (2004), “Strategy as ecology”. Harvard Business Review, pp68-78.
117 M. Iansiti, (2005), "Managing the Ecosystem." Optimize Magazine 4,
www.optimizemag.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=59300381.
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