A collage of computer themed images over binary numbers

Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime

Bringing together expertise in cybercrime and economic crime

The Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime (CCEC) was founded in 2022 to bring together our extensive knowledge in these areas, and to enhance research, teaching and innovation in these fields.

Our aim is to harness, coordinate and develop the cybercrime and economic crime expertise across the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the wider University, including the School of Computing, the Department of Psychology, and the Faculty of Business and Law.

CCEC also enables greater multidisciplinary working and cooperation between the many other pockets of interest related to cybercrime and economic crime across the University and beyond. 

As one the largest groups of active researchers in these areas in the UK, our members are at the forefront of researching and understanding the challenges posed by cybercrime and economic crime. Their work contributes to solutions that address these risks and enhance societal and organisational security and resilience.

CCEC incorporates and builds upon the work of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies, and includes our Cybercrime Awareness Clinic

Our members have also developed links with Korean academics to jointly study issues in cybercrime and economic crime.   

CCEC research focuses upon these broad areas:

  • Fraud 
  • Corruption 
  • Intellectual property crime
  • Financial regulation 
  • Economic and industrial espionage 
  • Money laundering 
  • Cybercrime
  • Cybersecurity 
  • Digital forensics 
  • Forensic accounting 
  • Prevention, detection, investigation and punishment for cybercrimes and economic crimes
  • Environmental crime
  • Victimology

Research groups

CCEC is built upon four smaller research groups focusing on specific areas of cybercrime and economic crime.

Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Group

We're researching how crime takes place using technology, such as cyber fraud, hacking, online abuse, and its impact on individuals and society. 

Computer hacker working at laptop
Read more

Economic Crime Research Group

We're researching the scale, impact and cost of economic crimes — such as fraud, corruption and money laundering.

man using calculator at desk
Read more

Victimology and Ecological Justice Group

We're researching victims and victimisation, inequality, domestic and online abuse, ecological justice, wildlife crime and climate change.

A Pangolin in a cage
Read more

Cyber security

We're working to improve the security of the systems used to access assets, and to make the way people access them more secure.

Female cyber security worker working at computer
Read more

Cybercrime Awareness Clinic

Part of CCEC, the clinic provides cybercrime awareness advice to individuals, community groups, schools, colleges and small and medium organisations, and conducts research into cybercrime awareness and prevention.

 

Find out more

Anglo-Korean Security, Cybercrime and Economic Crime Academic Network (AKSCECAN)

Members of CECC have strong links with researchers in South Korea.

As part of an ESRC funded research project into fraud, cybercrime and ageing in the UK and South Korea, they have established an academic network.

Find out more


Our members

Co-Directors

Mark Button Portrait

Media ready expert

Professor Mark Button

Professor of Criminology

Mark.Button@port.ac.uk

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

PhD Supervisor

Read more
Vasileios Karagiannopoulos Portrait

Media ready expert

Dr Vasileios Karagiannopoulos

Associate Professor in Cybercrime and Cybersecurity

vasileios.karagiannopoulos@port.ac.uk

School of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

PhD Supervisor

Read more

Events

CCEC organises a range of events relating to various aspects of cybercrime and economic crime.

Every June, the Centre hosts a two-day international conference, in person and online, featuring dozens of presentations on a wide range of subjects. In January, we host an online Winter Symposium focusing on specific issues of economic crime. The Centre also hosts a series of seminars on relevant topics throughout the academic year, both online and in person.

Please sign up to our mailing list to receive notifications about all of our upcoming events and calls for papers.

Upcoming event

The 14th Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference will take place at the University of Portsmouth, 18-19 June 2025. Registration will go live early in 2025, but in the meantime please see our call for papers.

 

Past events

Centre co-director Professor Mark Button delivered a public lecture at the University of Portsmouth on 16 October 2024, discussing the fraud epidemic, who is responsible and what can be done about it. To be informed about future public lectures and other events, please subscribe to our mailing list.

The 13th Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference was held in-person at the University of Portsmouth over two days on Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th June 2024.

This year’s conference featured keynote and plenary speakers including:

  • Professor Rutger Leukfeldt (Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement and Center of Expertise Cybersecurity, Hague University of Applied Sciences)
  • Oleksiy Feshchenko (former advisor to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime)
  • Professor Durgesh Pandey (Professor of Practice, National Forensic Sciences University, India)
  • Andrei Skorobogatov and Ayesha Babar (Home Office, International Fraud)
  • Chris Freeman and Michael Betts (Public Sector Fraud Authority)
  • Cyber Crime Unit, National Crime Agency

In addition to the above, over 30 speakers from across the globe shared their research and expertise on a range of topics including Online Harms, Victims of Fraud, Anti-Fraud Technology, Cybersecurity and Hacking, Digital Threats, Telecommunication Frauds, Beneficial Ownership, Fraud Investigation, Government Responses to Fraud, Fraud Detection, Organised and Environmental Crime, and Auditing.

The aim of the conference was to network, share our research and insights into techniques, ideas, or approaches that help to inform fellow scholars and professionals on important debates in the field of cybercrime, economic crime and forensic accounting.

The 5th Winter Economic Crime Symposium was held online on 18th January 2024, organised by Dr Branislav Hock, of the Economic Crime Research Group. The event featured sessions on Economic Crime in War and Exploring UK government initiatives to tackle economic crime, bringing together a diverse body of researchers, practitioners, students and other community members. The keynote speech, on Economic Crime and War Crimes, was delivered by Professor Noelle Quenivet, from the University of the West of England. The full programme including speaker biographies is available here.

The Symposium was supported by the Journal of Economic Criminology.

CCEC recently co-hosted the 2024 Annual Terrorism and Extremism Colloquium with the European Society of Criminology Working Group on Radicalization, Extremism, and Terrorism (WG-Extreme). The colloquium included panels on ideologies in online extremist dynamics, extreme misogyny, the methodological challenges of researching online extremism, pathways and recruitment into extremism, incels, conspiracy theories and emerging technologies, ethics and reflexivity and an early career researcher symposium. The keynote speech, on Navigating the Challenges of Researching Online Extremism, was delivered by Jokob Guhl, from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The full programme including speaker biographies is available here.

 

The 12th Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference, which took place on 14th and 15th June 2023, was hosted for the first time by the Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime and was a huge success, welcoming over 300 in-person and online delegates from across the globe, with over 50 speakers sharing their research and expertise. Over 60 organisations were represented, including higher education, banking and financial services, government agencies, law enforcement, crime prevention, technology, research, insurance and loss adjusting, accounting, law and auditing. Read more…

 

The Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime recently launched a series of online “fireside chats” – discussions between Centre co-directed Dr Vasileios Karagiannopoulos and industry leaders from the fields of cybersecurity, risk management and governance/compliance, sharing their insights regarding topical issues and associated challenges they are facing and that have a wider impact for the UK, its businesses and citizens.

For our first session we welcomed Onur Korucu (Managing Partner and Advisory Board Member of Govern ID, a WomenTech Global Ambassador and Council Member and International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) Ireland Chapter Chair) for a fascinating discussion about  digital transformation of the EU and its impact on the UK. The event was recorded and you can watch the video here. If you would like to be kept informed of the date and time of our next fireside chat, please subscribe to our mailing list.

CCEC news

STANDARD LICENSE; PLEASE SEE ADDITIONAL ASSET FOR FULL LICENSE TERMS.

Report warns of missed opportunities by police in the fight against economic crime

30 September 2024

Report warns of missed opportunities by police in the fight against economic crime
vas

Catching killers on camera

2 September 2024

Catching killers on camera
STANDARD LICENSE; PLEASE SEE ADDITIONAL ASSET FOR FULL LICENSE TERMS.

Replace Serious Fraud Office in new focus on prevention

23 August 2024

Replace Serious Fraud Office in new focus on prevention
STANDARD LICENSE; PLEASE SEE ADDITIONAL ASSET FOR FULL LICENSE TERMS.

Study suggests quarter of UK adults commit at least one economic crime a year

21 August 2024

Study suggests quarter of UK adults commit at least one economic crime a year
old person

New study highlights the alarming rise of telephone fraud targeting older adults in the UK

15 July 2024

New study highlights the alarming rise of telephone fraud targeting older adults in the UK

CCEC blogs and podcasts

STANDARD LICENSE; PLEASE SEE ADDITIONAL ASSET FOR FULL LICENSE TERMS.

Call for Papers - 2025 Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference

Call for Papers - 2025 Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference
stranger

Violence against women isn’t the only national emergency – we must also tackle the misogyny that’s causing it

Lisa Sugiura

Violence against women isn’t the only national emergency – we must also tackle the misogyny that’s causing it
Conference poster

Conference aims to tackle the global threats and challenges of cyber and economic crime

Conference aims to tackle the global threats and challenges of cyber and economic crime
computing screen with code

US sanctions on Iranian hackers highlight growing concern about the Islamic Republic’s cyberwarriors

US sanctions on Iranian hackers highlight growing concern about the Islamic Republic’s cyberwarriors
Dr Branislav Hock and Olúwatóoní Akinkùótù presenting

12th Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference

12th Counter Fraud, Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference

Research publications

See all CCEC research outputs on PURE

You can also view a list of books, articles and reports by CCEC members on their staff profiles.

Our members' most recent work related to cybercrime and economic crime is below.

Publication highlights

2024

Disseminating fraud awareness and prevention advice to older adults: perspectives on the most effective means of delivery

Button, M., Hawkins, C. D., Shepherd, D. W. J., Tapley, J.

23 Oct 2024, In: Crime Prevention and Community Safety, 16p.

Deep Image: A precious image based deep learning method for online malware detection in IoT environment

Ghahramani, M., Javidan, R., Shojafar, M., Taheri, R., Wan, S.

1 Oct 2024, In: Internet of Things (Netherlands). 27, 17p., 101300

Introducing the high-context communication style interview protocol to detect deception in pairs

Ashkenazi, T., Fisher, R., Leal, S., Palena, N., Vernham, Z., Vrij, A.

1 Sep 2024, In: Acta Psychologica. 249, 20p., 104440

The dishonest disposition and everyday economic criminality of the British public

Button, M., Hawkins, C. D., Shepherd, D. W. J.

1 Sep 2024, In: Journal of Economic Criminology. 5, 13p., 100090

Multi-scale convolutional auto encoder for anomaly detection in 6G environment

Alsubai, S., Innab, N., Nappi, M., Shiaeles, S., Umer, M.

1 Aug 2024, In: Computers and Industrial Engineering. 194, 13p., 110396

Featured publications


Active Research Projects

Counter Fraud Cybercrime and Forensic Accounting Conference

Button, M., Gilmour, P., Karagiannopoulos, V., Sugiura, L.

01/06/2023 → 30/06/2025

The Journal of Economic Criminology

Our members are at the forefront of developing the sub-discipline of ‘economic criminology’, and have been involved in setting up the Journal of Economic Criminology.

Visit the journal website


Explore our courses in cybercrime and economic crime

The University of Portsmouth offers a wide range of courses related to cybercrime and economic crime, from undergraduate to Doctorate level. We also offer campus based and distance learning options for some courses. Many of our general criminology degrees also offer cybercrime and economic crime modules. 

We can also provide bespoke courses and accreditation, please contact us for further information.

Postgraduate research degrees, Professional Doctorates and PhDs

Criminology postgraduate research degrees

Explore our pre-approved Criminology PhD projects, learn more about our MPhil and other research degrees, and find out how to join the thriving research community at the University of Portsmouth.

Forensics student puts crime evidence in bag
Read more

PhD

Discover why you should do your PhD at the University of Portsmouth – and explore the subject areas you can study in, how to fund your PhD, and how to apply.

Male University of Portsmouth PhD student in X-Ray Fluorescence laboratory
Read more