Il diritto penale dell'informatica nel passaggio dal computer crime al cybercrime. Tecniche di tutela e beni giuridici tutelati in prospettiva europea ed internazionale. Le nuove forme di attacco ai sistemi di informazione commesse nel cyberspace

The object of the doctoral thesis involves the main menaces to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data and information systems. First of all the thesis underlines how the progressive interconnection between computers has changed the high-tech crime, determining the passage from computer crime to cybercrime. Secondly it determines the socio-criminological profile of the cyber criminals, with special regard to hackers, crackers and insiders. Then it deals with the main techniques used by the cyber criminals to attack the information systems, such as the use of malware, spread out in Internet by means of spam or bulk e-mails and Botnet, the Denial of Service and Distributed Denial of Service attacks, Mail-Bombing and Net-strike. After this criminological analysis, it analyzes the main legal sources adopted at regional and international levels in the fight against cybercrime, with special regard to the provisions and recommendations concerning the confidentiality, integrity and availability. The aim of these supranational legal sources is to evaluate if these legal instruments have favoured the harmonization of the national legal systems or if they have only determined an overlapping of legal models, without an effective standardization of the national criminal legislations. The analysis of the juridical experience of some legal systems of civil law (Germany and Spain) and common law (United States) has allowed to value the legal techniques used by the Italian legislator with regard to the formulation of the offences of illegal access (art. 615-ter criminal code), and data damages (art. 635-bis and 635-ter criminal code) and computer damage (art. 635-quater, 635-quinquies criminal code). The analysis of the mens rea and actus reus elements of these offences has allowed to underline their specific normative structure and to identity the new protected legal interests such as the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data and systems. Finally it proposes some amendments to the illegal access and computer damage offences, moving from some examples of good practice of the Spanish, German and American legal systems.