Exploring the carbon impact of cybercrime and its mitigation

Increased digitalisation of industry, government and society has delivered tremendous benefit, the power of data-driven analysis and control looks to increase. Systems are more valuable to society, government and industry and therefore offer a greater benefit to all. The increased importance of connected systems, and the value of their data has become of significant interest to cyber criminals, online crime accounts for over $1tn pa. These economic activities undoubtedly have a carbon consequence. However current research is primarily focused on the risk and economics of this “push pull” tension between attack and defence with some body of knowledge covering the emotional effects of online crime. There is a gap in the correlation of carbon to cyber impact, cyber defence, and overall risk. This paper describes preliminary research to explore tensions between fit-for-purpose defence and good carbon stewardship and looks at holistic approaches to cyber reduction. It looks at the efficacy of existing risk models and whether or if they can incorporate carbon into the conventional cost and risk tensions which we see today in cyber infrastructures. Rational actor theory has been used in foreign policy and is being applied to cybercrime as well as carbon, to date as isolated discussions.