Technology improvements and the rapid acceleration of computer systems and network have significantly impacted societies over the last 20 years, with countless improvements in work areas of productivity, health, connectivity, education and science (Gruyter, 2014, p. 459). Technology provides the foundation of the modern developed nation with computer systems operating and managing electrical, water, sewerage, telecommunications, transport and other utilities in vast, complex automated arrangements. Technological innovation has significantly enabled globalization by overcoming traditional territorial and national boundaries, connecting societies, organizations and people that would otherwise never would (Naseem, 1999, p. 636). These technology enhancements have created a hyperconnected world in which everyone has ‘the potential to communicate and to interact with anyone, anywhere at anytime’ (McGuire, 2014, p. 77). While there are countless benefits to hyperconnectivity, it also aids in the growth, proliferation and reach of criminal entities in scales that range from gangs to non-state terrorist groups. Paralleling the surge in dependence on technology and computer systems is the rise in threats to computer systems themselves, and threat of using computer systems to attack groups within society (Döge, 2016, p. 487). A challenge that has arisen when developing policy and legislation is clearly defining and separating cybercrime, cyberterrorism and cyberwar. This essay will contextualize the distinctiveness of cybercrime, cyberterrorism, and cyberwar, and will define the circumstances that allow for cyberterrorism to be separated from cybercrime and cyberwar. (more…)