The Human Impact of Cyber Crime

Internet Security and Anti-Virus retailer Norton recently released an enlightening report into the human impact of cybercrime. Many articles have been written on the threat posted by cyber criminals, and the measures that can be taken to mitigate that threat, but Norton focussed on something different and, in the process, revealed that 65% of adults consider themselves a victim, 75% blame themselves and more people report the crimes to their banks than to the police.

The figures aren’t perhaps quite as bleak as they might at first seem – the majority of the criminal attacks are viruses or malware which, whilst certainly criminal, are probably not targeted, and for the ordinary person on the street are unlikely to result in any financial loss. Specifically, 51% of online users claimed to have been a victim of a virus or malware, whilst the more targeted attacks – phishing, online scams, social network hacking, bank fraud and sexual predation were experienced by far fewer people – between 7 and 10%. To compare these figures with the offline world, the risk in the UK of being a victim of a violent crime during 2009 was 3.5%.

As the image on the right from Norton’s report shows, two thirds of victims are angry as a result of their ordeal and a worrying 30-35% are left feeling scared or violated. In addition, feelings of guilt are high at around 75%. Joseph LaBrie PhD, from Loyola Marymount University, points out that, in addition to these emotions which are perfectly normal for a victim of a crime, cyber crime, as a result of our expectations of technology, also evokes a feeling of irritation.

Our expectations of justice are also vastly different when it comes to cyber crime. With only 21% of victims expecting that the perpetrator might be brought to justice, only 44% of victims who report cyber crime, report it to the police. The remainder either report it to the financial institution (presumably to recoup financial losses) or to their e-mail or service provider. This is perhaps because most of us believe that one-off foreign criminals are responsible for the majority of attacks, and that law enforcement will find it difficult to identify and prosecute them. Our conceptions, it turns out, are misguided. Whilst the international law enforcement community may well find it difficult to prosecute cyber criminals, they certainly aren’t faceless individuals – Norton claim that up to 90% of online crime is perpetrated by large organised criminal networks. Our faith in law enforcement is so limited that a quarter of all victims take steps to try to identify the criminals themselves.

Joseph LaBrie explains that we have learned to be helpless when it comes to cyber crime:

We accept cybercrime because of a ‘learned helplessness’. It’s like getting ripped off at a garage – if you don’t know enough about cars, you don’t argue with the mechanic. People just accept a situation, even if it feels bad.

Some countries are better than others at resolving incidents. Spain, for instance, resolves around 85% of incidents, though East and South Asia are lagging behind – Japan, India and China resolving less than half. On average the cost of an incident is $350 and it takes a number of weeks to fully resolve.

Moral Compass

How did the general public fare when quizzed on their own moral compass? A third would edit and share pictures taken by someone else, a quarter would covertly read someone else’s e-mail if they had the opportunity and almost 20% would plagiarise the work of others. With only a fifth of adults having any regrets about this kind of activity, we should consider whether the Internet somehow tempts otherwise law abiding citizens into an online life of crime. Joseph LaBrie thinks so:

We’ve become accustomed to getting so much of what we need off the Internet for free. So it’s difficult to train people to think about paying for something in this otherwise free place. They don’t regard it in the same way as regular commerce. The psychology around the Internet is that if it’s out there, it’s fair game.

In an online world where two thirds of people have been a victim, one third are happy to break the law themselves, and almost half of all adults have lied about themselves or invented a completely new identity, it us unsurprising that only 9% of people feel safe. The bright news is that 3% of all adults believe themselves to be immune to online crime – presumably they haven’t read Norton’s report.