Publications

The rapid development of cyberspace has led to a growing threat of criminally motivated cybertheft of intellectual property in general, and of commercial and private digital trade secrets in particular. This kind of cybercrime could have a critical impact on the international macro-economic system, including potential massive loss of tax revenue and drop in GDP. While most countries have strategic cyber defense doctrines to protect their physical critical infrastructures against politically motivated cyber warfare, they still lack suitable doctrines, legislation, and means of protecting digital intellectual property against criminally motivated cybercrimes. Furthermore, the outdated approach of consequential penalties against cybercrimes is irrelevant, as cyberspace makes it difficult to detect the intellectual property theft in real time. In this article, we will analyze whether the macro-economic implications of the growing cybertheft trends will help render the commercial and private digital intellectual property as critical infrastructure that should be proactively protected by governments against cybertheft.