A broad, inclusive focus is necessary to address problems of cybercrime, going beyond criminal law, penal procedures and law enforcement. The focus should include requirements for the secure functioning of a cyber-economy optimizing business confidence and individual privacy, as well as strategies to promote and protect the innovation and wealth-creating potential and opportunities of information and computing technologies, including early warning and response mechanisms in case of cyberattacks. Behind the prevention and prosecution of computer-related crime looms the larger challenge of creating a global culture of cybersecurity, addressing the needs of all societies, including developing countries, with their emerging and still vulnerable information technology structures.

            International cooperation at all levels should be developed further. Because of its universal character, the United Nations system, with improved internal coordination mechanisms called for by the General Assembly, should have the leading role in intergovernmental activities to ensure the functioning and protection of cyberspace so that it is not abused or exploited by criminals or terrorists. In particular, the United Nations system should be instrumental in advancing global approaches to combating cybercrime and to procedures for international cooperation, with a view to averting and mitigating the negative impact of cybercrime on critical infrastructure, sustainable development, protection of privacy, e-commerce, banking and trade.

          All States should be encouraged to update their criminal laws as soon as possible, in order to address the particular nature of cybercrime. With respect to traditional forms of crime committed through the use of new technologies, this updating may be done by clarifying or abolishing provisions that are no longer completely adequate, such as statutes unable to address destruction or theft of intangibles, or by creating new provisions for new crimes, such as unauthorized access to computers or computer networks. Such updating should also include procedural laws (for tracing communications, for example) and laws, agreements or arrangements on mutual legal assistance (for rapid preservation of data, for example). In determining the strength of new legislation, States should be encouraged to be inspired by the provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.

          Governments, the private sector and non-governmental organizations should work together to bridge the digital divide, to raise public awareness about the risks of cybercrime and introduce appropriate countermeasures and to enhance the capacity of criminal justice professionals, including law enforcement personnel, prosecutors and judges. For this purpose, national judicial administrations and institutions of legal learning should include comprehensive curricula on computer related crime in their teaching schedules.

          Cybercrime policy should be evidence-based and subject to rigorous evaluation to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, concerted and coordinated efforts at the international level should be made to establish funding mechanisms to facilitate practical research and curb many types of newly emerging cybercrime. It is, however, equally important to ensure that research be internationally coordinated and that research results be made widely available.

          UNODC should bring the results of the Workshop on Measures to Combat Computer-related Crime, to be held during the Eleventh Congress, to the attention of the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, to be held in Tunis in 2005, for its consideration.