Jonathan Lusthaus

To many, cybercrime is an invisible phenomenon. Offenders carry out virtual attacks and mask their identities through proxies and nicknames. As a result, the real-world location of offenders is often hidden. This project seeks to map the geography of cybercrime offenders through an expert survey, among other approaches. Engaging with the top cybercrime investigators and intelligence professionals from across government and industry, the survey captures the leading sources of different categories of cybercrime by country. The result of this survey is the World Cybercrime Index. The key findings are that there are a relatively small number of leading cybercrime hubs around the globe, and these hubs often specialise in particular kinds of cybercrime. The project seeks to develop a more nuanced understanding of why some countries produce significant cybercrime threats, and others do not, which has a number of important policy ramifications as to where to target efforts to combat cybercrime, and what these efforts should focus on in each location.