Carrapico & Lavorgna – Editorial 1 The European Review of Organised Crime Editorial Special Issue Space Oddity? Exploring Organised Crime Ventures in Cyber Space Helena Carrapico and Anita Lavorgna* Over the past two decades, the development of modern societies has become intimately interconnected with information technologies. Such a trend is particularly visible among the increasing number of personal objects, household appliances and professional structures connected to information networks (European Commission, 2015; Europol, 2014a). Although such evolution is usually applauded from an economic and societal perspective, it is also understood as constituting a risk in security terms. As the degree of connectivity dependence of individuals, companies and critical infrastructures grows, so does the likelihood of technology being abused, in particular for criminal purposes (Eriksson and Giacomello, 2010). As a result, cyber crime has become, over the past few years, the object of increased concern in Europe (Malmstrom, 2011; Avramopulos, 2015). According to the previous Home Affairs Cecilia Commissioner Malmstrom, “Cyber crime is an attack on basic societal values and citizen’s security” (2012: 2). Not only does it represent a considerable cost to European societies, but it also remains an important challenge for law enforcement and judicial systems, due to its technical complexity and rapid innovative character. As a result, numerous responses have been put in place, both at national and European level, with the first focusing on the implementation of resilience *Helena Carrapico is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University, School of Languages and Social Sciences. Contact: h.farrand-carrapico@aston.ac.uk Anita Lavorgna is Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton, Social Sciences. Contact: A.Lavorgna@soton.ac.uk. The European Review of Organised Crime 2(2), 2015, 1-5 ISSN: 2312-1653 © ECPR Standing Group of Organised Crime. For permissions please email european.review.oc@gmail.com