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 symposium focused on preliminary research findings regarding future cybercrime and the damage it causes, as well as the question of how scientific insights can be made available to security agencies—and law enforcement agencies in particular—in the future.
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 scenarios 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 is precisely where the two-day symposium “Re_thinking Cybercrime” came in. Researchers presented the initial findings of their work and discussed them with stakeholders. Presentations and workshops allowed participants to share their own perspectives, requirements, and open questions. The aim was to jointly examine various 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 began with keynote addresses that set the tone and outlined discussion topics for each day. Thus, following the official opening, the first day of the event began with a keynote address by Dr. Gert Hofstede. He spoke about cultural conditions, their importance, and their influence—particularly in the context of cybercrime and the characteristics 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 current 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 into the research process itself. This allowed the stakeholders 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 applicable in practice. Dialogue with stakeholders must take place already during the research process. This allows scientific findings and practical requirements to be aligned at an early stage,” says Dr. Nicole Hartlapp, head of the Cybervigilante Society research area at the Cyberagentur.
The event program was structured accordingly. Presentations of the research projects were followed by in-depth workshops, and the “Sneak Peek” session offered an initial look at the demonstrators. Finally, the projects’ results, as well as synergies, open questions, and requirements from the perspective of the end users, were compiled and discussed.
Through “Re_thinking Cybercrime,” the Cyberagentur brings together various 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 us 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, shifts in 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 – Identifying 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 designed to make the findings available to law enforcement, security, and government institutions.
ARCH – Holistically Assessing the Harm Caused by 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 team led by project director Prof. David Décary-Hétu is developing an approach that systematically assesses 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.