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Link to: Developing a harm index for individual victims of cybercrime

The Australian Institute of Criminology has released a Trends & issues paper that uses data from the Australian Cybercrime Survey to develop a harm index for individual victims of cybercrime.

• A harm score was developed and validated using a 34-item measure of practical, health, social, financial and legal impacts from cybercrime. The index comprises harm scores for 17 common cybercrimes and provides a measure of the relative severity of different types of online crime.
• Cybercrime harm is concentrated among certain victims, with 10.9 percent of victims accounting for 57.7 percent of the harm to all victims who completed the survey. Repeat victims who experienced multiple types of cybercrime were disproportionately impacted and should be prioritised for intervention.

The cybercrime harm index can help guide prevention and response efforts, monitor the impact of cybercrime over time, and measure the impact of prevention efforts on harm to victims.

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