The impact of cybercrime on businesses: a novel conceptual framework and its application to Belgium.
Despite growing indications and fears about the impact of cybercrime, only few academic studies have so far been published on the topic to complement those published by consultancy firms, cybersecurity companies and private institutes. The review of all these studies shows that there is no consensus...
| Published in: | Crime, Law & Social Change Vol. 70; no. 4; pp. 397 - 421 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Springer Nature
Nov2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=133269729&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 133269729 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 09254994 CRG jtl: Crime, Law & Social Change issn: 09254994 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Nov2018 vid: 70 iid: 4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 133269729 10.1007/s10611-018-9774-y ppf: 397 ppct: 24 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 606KB tig: atl: The impact of cybercrime on businesses: a novel conceptual framework and its application to Belgium. aug: au: Paoli, Letizia Visschers, Jonas Verstraete, Cedric affil: KU Leuven Faculty of Law, Leuven Institute of Criminology, H. Hooverplein 10, 3000, Leuven, Belgium su: Belgium Computer crimes Crime Extortion Industrial surveys sug: subj: Computer crimes Crime Extortion Belgium Industrial surveys ab: Despite growing indications and fears about the impact of cybercrime, only few academic studies have so far been published on the topic to complement those published by consultancy firms, cybersecurity companies and private institutes. The review of all these studies shows that there is no consensus on how to define and measure cybercrime or its impact. Against this background, this article pursues two aims: 1) to develop a thorough conceptual framework to define and operationalize cybercrime affecting businesses as well as its impact, harms, and costs; and 2) to test this conceptual framework with a survey of businesses based in Belgium, which was administered in summer 2016 and elicited 310 valid responses. Consisting of five types, our conceptualization of cybercrime is, unlike others, technology-neutral and fully compatible with the legislation. Drawing on Greenfield and Paoli’s Harm Assessment Framework (The British Journal of Criminology, 53, 864-885, 2013), we understand impact as the overall harm of cybercrime, that is, the “sum” of the harms to material support, or costs, and the harms to other interest dimensions i.e., functional (or operational) integrity, reputation and privacy. Whereas we ask respondents to provide a monetary estimate of the costs, respondents are invited to rate the severity of the harms on the basis of an ordinal scale. We claim that this “double track” gives a fuller, more valid assessment of cybercrime impact. Whereas most affected businesses do not report major costs or harm, 15% to 20% of them rate the harms to their internal operational activities as serious or more, with cyber extortion regarded as most harmful. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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