This is the third in a series of articles analyzing gender-based violence in the digital context, in anticipation of November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The focus here is on cyberstalking and its legal and social implications. Cyberstalking represents one of the most subtle threats of the digital age. It’s not just a rehash of traditional stalking, but a behavior that exploits and amplifies the weaknesses of the virtual world. It’s a repetitive persecution carried out via electronic means, which profoundly undermines people’s privacy and individual freedom. The criminological analysis I offer in university classrooms and

This is the second in a series of articles analyzing gender-based violence in the digital context, in anticipation of November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. The focus here is on the evolution of criminal protection against cybersexual assault. Virtual Sexual Violence (VSV) refers to a range of aggressive and coercive sexual behaviors that occur through digital tools, without physical contact between the perpetrator and the victim. This phenomenon, which disproportionately affects women and girls, takes on insidious forms, including sextortion and virtual sexual abuse, including through deepfakes . Although the action takes place in a virtual

As a criminal lawyer and professor of Criminal Computer Law, a student of the late Vittorio Frosini, a pioneer of legal informatics in Italy, I constantly reflect on the state of our education. This reflection clashes with the acceleration of history: Frosini’s 1968 work, Cybernetics, Law and Society , though avant-garde for its time, is today a benchmark for measuring how well the Italian legal system has kept pace with the “digital society” he anticipated. My own professional trajectory reflects this evolution. When I published my first book, Teoria e Pratica nell’interpretazione del crime informatico (Theory and Practice in the Interpretation of

On September 20, 2025, a cyberattack hit three of Europe’s major airports: London Heathrow, Brussels, and Berlin. The digital systems governing check-in and baggage handling were rendered unusable, resulting in delays, cancellations, and the inability to ensure regular flight traffic. For days, thousands of passengers were trapped in chaos that highlighted how dependent air travel is on the continued functioning of computer systems. The heart of vulnerability in the supply chain The cause should not be found in individual airports, but in Collins Aerospace, a US company belonging to the RTX Corporation group that provides critical software globally. The attack targeted MUSE,

In recent months, I’ve repeatedly found myself filing complaints about fake videos circulating online. We’re not just talking about stolen content distributed without consent, but also deepfakes: videos in which famous faces are superimposed over foreign bodies, often used to promote financial investments or inserted into pornographic contexts. A phenomenon that, unfortunately, is no longer surprising for its presence, but for the speed with which it grows, spreads, and improves. From “amateur” sites to digital fakes: a continuum of abuse Those who follow the industry have learned of platforms like Mia moglie or Phica. Platforms where apparent spontaneity often hides a veritable

The recent incident involving the Facebook group “My Wife,” active since 2019 and boasting over 32,000 members, highlights a dynamic intertwining privacy violations, nonconsensual pornography, systemic misogyny, and serious questions about the role of digital platforms. In this space, users have shared photographs of women without their consent, often images stolen from everyday life or private shots intended exclusively for a partner, sometimes accompanied by violent and explicitly sexist comments. This behavior cannot be dismissed as online pranks. We are dealing with conduct that violates the dignity of the people involved and has specific legal implications. The crime of so-called revenge porn

In the heart of contemporary conflicts, alongside tanks, drones and troops, an invisible, silent and often underestimated war is being fought: cyber war. It is not just a futuristic scenario or a hypothetical threat. It is reality. From the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, to the parallel attacks that occurred during the clash between Israel and Hamas, to the recent tensions between Israel and Iran, cyberspace has now become a real battlefield. Cyberspace as a new domain of warfare Cyberspace is no longer just the environment where computer fraud, child pornography dissemination or unauthorized access are carried out. It has been officially