There have been no arrests or charges for cybercrime events in the UK for almost two months. I do not believe that this apparent lack of law enforcement action is the result of any recent reduction in cybercrime. Instead, I predict that a multitude of coordinated arrests is being planned, to take place nationally over a short period of time.

My observations arise from the Cambridge Computer Crime Database (CCCD), which I have been maintaining for some time now. The database contains over 400 entries dating back to January 2010, detailing arrests, charges, and prosecutions for computer crime in the UK.

Since the beginning of 2016, there have been no arrests or charges for incidents that fit within the scope of the CCCD that I have picked up using various public source data collection methods. The last arrest was in mid-December, when a male was arrested on suspicion of offences under sections 1 and 2 of the Computer Misuse Act. Press coverage of this arrest linked it to the VTech data breach.

A coordinated ‘cyber crime strike week’ took place in early March 2015. In just one week, 57 suspects were arrested for a range of offences, including denial of service attacks, cyber-enabled fraud, network intrusion and data theft, and malware development.

Coordinated law enforcement action to address particular crime problems is not uncommon. A large number of arrests is ‘newsworthy’, capturing national headlines and sending the message that law enforcement take these matters seriously and wrongdoers will be caught. What is less clear is whether one week of news coverage would have a greater effect than 52 weeks of more sustained levels of arrest.

Furthermore, many of the outcomes of the 2015 arrests are unknown (possibly indicating no further action has been taken), or pending. This indicates that large numbers of simultaneous arrests may place pressure on the rest of the criminal justice system, particularly for offences with complex evidentiary requirements.