Cyber Security and Cyber Crime: A Comparative Study in a New "Cold War" Scenario

Abstract

This work has the purpose to highlight the different interpretation of cyber security between Euro-Atlantic partners and the Sino-Russian world. On grounds of this, we can realise how alternative their stance on the global scenario is. In fact, in the last years the NATO Alliance has been accusing Moscow of steadily violating international agreements, thus jeopardising regional stability and democratic processes through the collaboration with cyber criminals. On the other hand, the Russians and the Chinese have been cooperating on several questions, including control of the Web and contrast to terrorism and any kind of extremism in the cyber domain. According to such an approach, the Net is an extension of the physical territory of an independent State. Therefore, the Executive has the right to safeguard its sovereignty and protect the nation's ways of life and core values. This is why Russia has not signed the Budapest Convention of Cybercrime, which claims that a contracting Party may give access or receive stored computer data located elsewhere, without authorisation of another Party. In a few words, we can state that the Cold War has moved to the Internet.