О. Samoilenko

In the article on the basis of analysis of ambivalent nature of cyberspace, in particular his essence technical and social, nature of cyberspace as an object of criminalistics research is defined. The analysis of the use of cyberspace with a criminal purpose is conducted. It allowed to define the features of cyberspace, which a criminal uses with the purpose of achievement of criminal result, in particular:

1) remoteness (remotability) of access to the subject of infrigement with the use of cyberspace, that provides a transboundary component of such criminal activity which causes the necessity of decision to the investigators of questions of territorial jurisdiction;

2) the efficiency of the creation, distribution, modification or destruction of information in cyberspace, which is the subject of a criminal offense or the consequence of a crime – it contributes to a significant acceleration and qualitative concealment of criminal activity;

3) virtuality, which provides the relative confidentiality of information about the offender’s personality and the ability to influence the consciousness of a certain category of persons;

4) communicative, which makes possible the creation of criminal groups and increases the efficiency of existing organized crime;

5) imperfect provision of information security and legal protection of relations in cyberspace, which gives the offender the opportunity to avoid criminal responsibility for the crime.

Taking into account the technical and social component of such cyberspace content, it imposes a significant imprint on the mechanism of a criminal offense. In this aspect, cyberspace in criminalistics research can be considered as:

а) environment (situation), in which its separate elements (telecommunication network, computer system, etc.) could be used as an instrument for achieving an illegal purpose – violation of the normal functioning of this environment or seizure of intellectual property objects, payment facilities, material values;

b) the specific circumstances in which changes were made as a result of the offense (its traces).

The used cyberspace environment stipulates necessitates the use of updated methods, means and techniques for solving practical tasks for the investigation of such criminal activities to achieve a criminal result, having only dual technical and social factors.