Cybercrime in Ecuador, an exploration, which allows to define national cybersecurity policies

The widespread use of the Internet and cyberspace has allowed the development of new criminal forms of transnational nature that harm patrimonial as well as personal interests of users. Even more, these crimes could affect collective interests if they are based on attacks with a background of cyber racism or cyberterrorism. The current study provides a variety of topics such as the phenomenological characterization of cybercrime in Ecuador, the analysis of information related to the country obtained from national and international organizations, the determination of its growth and incidence. These results have been organized in order to be compatible and interrelated also with other demographic and economic data. One of the main targets of the outcome of this study has been to consider the analysis in the combat of the corresponding scourge in a systematic and structured way, so that legislators and planners of the national cybersecurity policy may be provided with a powerful database and tool for activities in a higher, strategic level. Furthermore, this analysis may be applied to other countries in the region that experience similar realities.