Emotional Impacts of Cybercrime to Users

There is no doubt about it, cybercrime is as real as regular crimes and it is huge. In fact, according a cybercrime report from Norton entitled The Human Impact shows that 65 percent of Web users were once victim of cybercrime. If you take into account that percentage, clearly that is a huge part in the population of internet users globally. Additionally, the software vendor of Norton, the Symantec has revealed the astonishing effect of cybercrime into the emotions on cybercrime victims.

The 65 percent of victims of cybercrime is like the two-thirds of Internet users across the globe. According to the report, there are 4 countries that have the most numbers of victims of cybercrime. The first country is China with 83 percent of its internet users suffered against cybercrime, Brazil and India tied at second place with 76 percent and the US on the third place with 73 percent. These four countries have the most number of victims of cyber crime and these countries are one of the most prevalent users of Internet across the globe. Sadly, only 9 percent of Internet users believe that they are safe online.

The report of Symantec has classified computer viruses and malware; fraud on credit cards, hacking, identity theft, online scams, online harassment, online phishing and even sexual predation on the Web as means of cybercrime. That is really a broad spectrum of crime and some are considered to be much more serious than others.

The report is the very first study to examine the impact of cybercrime to victims; the top ten emotional reactions of cybercrime victims were shown. 58 percent of victims felt angry; 51 percent were annoyed and 40 percent felt that they were cheated. Other emotions felt by victims were upset (38%), frustrated (38%), violated (36%), disgusted (30%), distrustful (30%), fearful or worried (29%) and helpless (26%). In many instances, victims blame themselves for the attack and some believe that anonymous criminals are the main culprits of the cybercrime. In fact, 80 percent of surveyed users don't believe that cybercriminals will go behind bars. Because of this, many victims do not take action like reporting the event or working to look for solutions or remedies to the damage.

Norton's lead advisor on cyber security, Adam Palmer, believes that these figures will tell mixed tales. Since most criminals reside in a different country, it is no surprise that most people say that they are faceless – because they are physically not in the country. And also uncovering international cybercrime is very hard and prosecuting them is almost impossible to do, thus people don't see justice being served.

According to the report only 44 percent of cybercrime victims would call their banks or financial institutions or perhaps the local police; and only 3 percent of them will contact their webhost or e-mail provider for incident response. In the US and UK, victims would rather call their financial institution or banks, with 59% and 63% subsequently. On the other hand victims in Japan and Sweden would call the police, with 52% and 74%.

According to a certain psychologist, people accept cybercrime because we believe that we are helpless. It is just like getting ripped off, for example if you do not know anything about cars or other things, you don't argue with the said experts. People will just accept any situation, even if that situation is unreasonable and feels bad.

Solving cybercrime is highly frustrating as well as time consuming and sadly, it leads to no results that could be deemed helpful. In fact, solving a cyber crime takes almost a month and would cost more than $300-$350 each day. Indeed, it is a hassle to report cybercrimes, but it is important to report them because either directly or pass-along additional costs from banks or financial institutions, people will pay for cyber crime. Cybercriminals will just steal small amounts of cash so that they remain undetected, but these will pile up. So if one fails to report cybercrime, then that person us actually helping the crook to stay under the security's radar and become richer.

Large cybercrimes that are perpetrated against you or your friends and families as well as the emotional impact can be mitigated by experts if you report them to officials. Because officials know how to respond to each attack because they have practiced incident handling training and incident response training.

The International Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) is a member-based organization that certifies individuals in cybersecurity and e-commerce. It is the owner and developer of 20 security certifications. EC-Council has trained over 90,000 security professionals and certified more than 40,000 members. These certifications are recognized worldwide and have received endorsements from various government agencies. They also offer trainings in incident handling.

More information about EC-Council is available at www.eccouncil.org.

Article By: eccuni