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07.10.2026 15:24

Thinking Ahead on Cybercrime

Michael Lindner Presse
Agentur für Innovation in der Cybersicherheit GmbH

Thinking Ahead on Cybercrime

Re_thinking Cybercrime: Forms, Patterns, and Consequences of Future Cybercrime

On September 29 and 30, 2026, the Agentur für Innovation in der Cybersicherheit GmbH (Cyberagentur) brought together some 60 researchers from Germany and abroad, as well as stakeholders, for the “Re_thinking Cybercrime” symposium in Halle (Saale). The focus was on preliminary research findings regarding future cybercrime and its impacts, as well as the question of how scientific insights can be utilized in the future by security agencies and, in particular, law enforcement authorities.

Cybercrime evolves alongside technological and societal developments. New technologies open up new possibilities, but at the same time create new vulnerabilities and can enable new forms of crime. Research must therefore look beyond existing threat landscapes and bring together a wide range of interdisciplinary perspectives. It must identify potential developments, examine the conditions under which they arise, and systematically document their consequences.

This was precisely the focus of the two-day symposium “Re_thinking Cybercrime.” Researchers presented preliminary findings from their work and discussed them with stakeholders. Presentations and workshops allowed participants to contribute their own perspectives, requirements, and open questions. The aim was to jointly examine different aspects of cybercrime, identify synergies between research approaches, generate new research questions for future work, incorporate the stakeholder perspective at an early stage, and build networks.

Both days of the event were kicked off with keynote addresses that set the framework and discussion points for each day. Thus, following the official opening, the first day of the event began with a keynote by Dr. Gert Hofstede. He spoke about cultural conditions, their importance, and their influence—particularly in the field of cybercrime and the development of perpetrators and their motives. In the keynote address on the second day, Roro Seidel debunked four myths regarding cybercrime and social media. For example, she noted that the assumption of an egalitarian internet structure does not reflect reality, and that marginalized groups experience crime and violence more frequently in the digital space as well.

Stakeholders Become Part of the Research Process

The participating stakeholders played a central role in “Re_thinking Cybercrime.” For them, the symposium offered the opportunity to learn firsthand about the state of research, discuss practical requirements with the project teams, and help shape the research of tomorrow.

The focus was not merely on the subsequent transfer of completed research. Rather, the perspectives of those institutions that must deal with cybercrime and its consequences were to be incorporated already during the research process. Stakeholders were therefore able to discuss what insights and tools they need and under what conditions research findings can be applied in their institutions in the future.

“We don’t want to wait until the end of a research project to ask whether the results are usable in practice. The exchange with stakeholders must take place during the research itself. This allows scientific findings and practical requirements to be linked at an early stage,” says Dr. Nicole Hartlapp, head of the Cybervigilante Society research field at the Cyberagentur.

The event program was designed with this in mind. Presentations of the research were followed by in-depth workshops, and the “Sneak Peek” session offered initial insights into the demonstrators. Finally, project results, synergies, open questions, and requirements from the perspective of end-users were brought together and discussed.

With “Re_thinking Cybercrime,” the Cyberagentur brings together different research disciplines with the perspective of future users. Three research projects from the “Research on Future Cybercrime” (zCK) and “Damage Caused by Cybercrime” (SCK) programs shed light on different dimensions of the same phenomenon. Together, they aim to help understand future cybercrime earlier, classify its impacts in a scientifically sound manner, and lay the groundwork for a proactive approach to new threats.

Three Research Approaches – One Common Research Question

CytZuReDen – Systematically Anticipating Future Cybercrime: The project team at the Institute for Future Studies and Technology Assessment (IZT) is investigating the forms cybercrime might take in the future. The focus is on plausible scenarios for the years 2030 and 2040. To this end, technological developments are linked to cultural and structural changes. Foresight methods and technology assessment take into account, among other things, shifting values, technology acceptance, competencies, and legal frameworks. The aim is to provide guidance that helps security agencies and society address potential developments at an early stage.

Cybercrime Early Warning Radar – Recognizing and analyzing patterns before threats take hold: The project team, led by the international research consortium Ventel LLC under Dr. C. Jordan Howell, combines artificial intelligence with social science methods. The study examines the technical, structural, and cultural conditions of cybercrime in Germany and selected comparison countries. The aim is to identify changes and attack trends at an early stage. An interactive dashboard is intended to make the findings available to law enforcement, security, and government institutions.

ARCH – Holistically Assessing the Harms of Cybercrime: In the “Assessing Risks and Cybercrime Harms” (ARCH) project, an international research consortium led by the Université de Montréal is collaborating with Flare Systems, the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg, the Cyberintelligence Institute, and Freie Universität Berlin. The group led by project director Prof. David Décary-Hétu is developing an approach that systematically captures the material, immaterial, and cascading harms caused by cybercrime. In addition to financial losses, this approach takes into account, for example, psychological stress, loss of trust, organizational impacts, and long-term societal consequences.

Further information:

https://www.cyberagentur.de/programme/zck
https://www.cyberagentur.de/programme/sck

Press contact:

Agentur für Innovation in der Cybersicherheit GmbH
Große Steinstraße 19
06108 Halle (Saale)
Michael Lindner
Press Officer
Phone: +49 151 44150 645
Email:presse@cyberagentur.de

Background: Cyberagentur

The Agentur für Innovation in der Cybersicherheit GmbH (Cyberagentur) was founded in 2020 by the German Federal Government as a wholly owned in-house entity of the German Federal Government under the joint leadership of the German Federal Ministry of Defence and the German Ministry of the Interior, with the aim of adopting an application-strategy-oriented and interagency perspective on internal and external security in the field of cybersecurity. Against this backdrop, the Cyberagentur’s work is primarily aimed at the institutionalized implementation of highly innovative projects that carry a high risk with regard to achieving their objectives but, at the same time, have the potential to be highly disruptive if successful.

The Cyberagentur is an integral part of the National Security Strategy of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Cyberagentur is led by Prof. Dr. Christian Hummert as Scientific Director and Bettina Bubnys as Commercial Director.

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Wissenschaftliche Ansprechpartner:

Dr. Nicole Hartlapp, head of the Cybervigilante Society research field at the Cyberagentur

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Originalpublikation:

https://www.cyberagentur.de/en/press/thinking-ahead-on-cybercrime/

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Merkmale dieser Pressemitteilung:
Journalisten, Studierende, Wirtschaftsvertreter, Wissenschaftler
Gesellschaft, Informationstechnik, Philosophie / Ethik, Politik, Recht
überregional
Forschungsprojekte, Wissenschaftliche Tagungen
Englisch

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