Cyber Pirates and Privateers

Abstract This chapter analogizes the relationship between Russian cybercrime and the state to historical privateers and pirates and draws insights based on the type of relationship found and the political strategies used to interact with such actors. The first part shows how historical strategies used to link piracy to a government are implemented today to transform hacking into state-sponsored hacking, using the case of Estonia (2007). This sheds light on elements of the politics of attribution. The second part analyses three criminal cases discussing the risks and opportunities associated with the closeness between cybercrime and politics. The analysis focuses on the longevity and path dependencies. The identification of drivers and feedback-loops refines our understanding of the difficulty to exit a policy of political cybercriminal nexus. This offers a conceptual explanation of the stability of politically constituted cyber insecurity.