Dr Miranda Bruce is ready to wrangle the cybercrime data. (Main photo: John Carroll/UNSW Canberra at ADFA; background image: Benjamas/Rawpixel; digital composition: Stilgherrian.)

Have you ever been a victim of cybercrime? I know I have. I bet you have too. So let’s talk about that now with Dr Miranda Bruce from UNSW Canberra, because she’s been working on the World Cybercrime Index.

In this episode we talk about the types of cybercrime and its different characteristics around the world, cybercrime factories and human trafficking, and how law enforcement agencies’ views about their role all this role seem to different those of us ordinary citizens.

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Episode Links

01. Dr Miranda Bruce

Lecturer in Cyber Security at UNSW Canberra. Post-doc researcher with the CRIMGOV group at Oxford.
02. Oxford digital dons vs Russian elektro-mafia: Australia stakes its claim in cyber’s geopolitical name-and-blame game

[11 April 2024] In the past three years, several universities with a cyber interest have come together to create a World Cybercrime Index (WCI). It maps the geography of protagonists as opposed to an attack launch or victim topology, which is a nice way of saying ‘whodunnit” and naming the states.
03. World-first Cybercrime Index maps the global geography of cybercrime | Department of Sociology

[10 April 2024] Researchers from the Department of Sociology [at the University of Oxford] have compiled the first ever ‘World Cybercrime Index’, which identifies the globe’s major cybercrime hotspots by ranking the most significant sources of cybercrime at a national level.
05. Mapping the global geography of cybercrime with the World Cybercrime Index | PLOS ONE

[10 April 2024; this is the full paper] From March to October 2021 we invited leading experts in cybercrime intelligence/investigations from across the world to participate in an anonymized online survey on the geographical location of cybercrime offenders... The outcome of the survey is the World Cybercrime Index, a global metric of cybercriminality organised around five types of cybercrime. The results indicate that a relatively small number of countries house the greatest cybercriminal threats.
06. The Weekly Cybers #13 • Buttondown

[12 April 2024] One of the most frustrating aspects of reporting on cybersecurity is the tendency for vendors and politicians to talk up the threat by referring to millions or even billions of “attacks” per day when what they really mean is “individual bad data packets”... Finally, help is at hand.
07. North Korea is the most destructive cyber threat right now: FireEye | ZDNET

[4 October 2018] DPRK hackers are cybering every way they can, and according to FireEye their destructiveness and unpredictability makes them dangerous.
08. Meet the scammers breaking hearts and stealing billions online | Four Corners - YouTube

[11 February 2019] Four Corners takes you inside the world of online scamming, as reporter Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop meets teenagers running romance scams out of internet cafes in West Africa and tracks global crime rings involved in drug trafficking and money laundering.
09. How cyber-crime has become organised warfare | Four Corners - YouTube

[17 April 2023] Every seven minutes a cyber-attack is reported in Australia. Millions of Australians have had their data stolen in malicious attacks, costing some businesses tens of millions of dollars in ransom. The federal government is warning the country must brace for even more strikes as cyber gangs become more sophisticated and ruthless. Four Corners investigates the cyber gangs behind these assaults, cracking open their inner operations and speaking to a hacker who says he targets Australians and shows no remorse. The program travels all the way to Ukraine and discovers we share a common enemy in the battle for cyber security.
10. Australian real estate agents a trending target for cybercrime | ZDNET

[31 May 2018] Typically Nigerian, these cybercriminals are highly organised. Their teams of mules can shift everything from iPhones to Lego, not just money. And they can smell blood in the water.
11. Chinese crime syndicates: Rebels uncover scam centres in Myanmar - YouTube

In Myanmar, when rebels defeated government forces in the city of Laukkaing (LAO-GAI) late last year, they uncovered a number of scam centres run by Chinese crime syndicates. The operators were victims of the fraudulent scheme themselves and had been tricked and trafficked into Myanmar. Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng has more from the Thai-Myanmar border.
12. Thailand: 900 scam factory Chinese victims rescued near Myanmar border | WION - YouTube

[5 March 2024] The Thai prime minister has announced the country...