Is Australia a cybercrime hub?

Australia has one of the highest rates of cybercrime victimisation in the world – but does Australia produce as much cybercrime as it suffers? Our understanding of where cybercriminals operate, and the geography of the cybercrime economy more broadly, is extremely limited. Our response to this problem is the World Cybercrime Index (WCI), the first attempt to map cybercrime hotspots across the globe using survey data with world leading experts in cybercrime intelligence and investigations. The WCI identifies the most significant sources of cybercrime, and measures the impact of the cybercrimes produced in different countries and the skills of the cybercriminals who commit them.

The presentation will briefly summarise the WCI, our methodology, and the key takeaways. Then Australia’s WCI results will be explored in detail: how much of a ‘hotspot’ is Australia compared to the rest of the world, and what kind of cybercrime thrives here? Finally, using unpublished data from the latest WCI survey, we will look at how the unique cybercriminality profile of the Asia Pacific is changing, and what this might mean for Australia’s anti-cybercrime efforts.