Cyber-Dependent Crime, Autism, and Autistic-Like Traits

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS, 2018) estimates that cybercrime costs the world’s economy almost $600 billion per annum. Several high profile extradition cases for cybercrime, where the USA has attempted to extradite hackers from the UK, have been denied on the basis that the hackers were autistic (Charlton in Information Today 28(8):14–15, 2011; McCoogan in The full story of Lauri Love’s fight against extradition. The Telegraph, 2016; Sharp in Saving Gary McKinnon: A Mother’s Story. Biteback Publishing, 2013). The number of such cases is very small and evidence for a link between autism and cybercrime has not been established (Ledingham & Mills in Advances in Autism 1(1):2–11, 2015). International law enforcement agencies, however, report that autism appears to be more prevalent amongst cybercriminals than the general populace (Ledingham & Mills in Advances in Autism 1(1):2–11, 2015). This chapter explores what constitutes cybercrime—specifically cyber-dependent crime (or ‘pure’ cybercrime)—and potential relationships with autism and autistic-like traits in the general population. Autistic-like traits refer to behavioural traits such as social imperviousness, directness in conversation, lack of imagination, affinity for solitude, and difficulty displaying emotions (Gernsbacher et al. in PLoS ONE 12(2):e0171931, 2017). Autistic-like traits are argued to vary continuously across the general population, with autism residing at the extreme end of this continuum (Ruzich et al., 2015a). This chapter discusses the overlap between autism and autistic-like traits and potential relationships with cyber-dependent crime. Early evidence suggests that it may be higher levels of autistic-like traits, not autism, that are associated with increased risk of committing cyber-dependent crime (Payne et al. in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 49(10):4159–4169, 2019).