Electronic digital virtualization in criminology: objects and forms of research; criminalistic significance for the criminal process

The purpose of the study. The article analyzes the manifestations of electronic digital virtualization in criminology, which is reflected both in the expansion of the range of objects of its research, and in the emergence of new types and forms (methodological, hardware-man-made) research in this field. The results of forensic practice make it possible to counteract the criminalization of the electronic digital virtual sphere and become potentially and actually, after their appropriate regulatory and legal formalization, a source of new objective evidence in the fight against criminal manifestations in the electronic digital information and communication environment.

Conclusions. Domestic criminology, in the process of a dynamic transition of society from the industrial stage of development to the information one, acquires innovative areas and objects of research, including and in a virtual environment, which is accompanied by the generation and implementation of types and forms of research with virtualization elements. The results of forensic research in a virtual environment should be guaranteed to be able to become a source of objective evidence in the domestic criminal process, which requires the dynamic development of the legislative framework in this area, which at present is very much limited only to the field of computer-technical expertise.