Cybersecurity and cybercrime: Current trends and threats

Abstract

The rapid development of digital technologies and their active implementation in all spheres of the economy, on the one hand, contribute to increased control over the activities of economic entities, and on the other hand, create new challenges associated with the dynamic development of cybercrime. The purpose of the article is to analyze the global trends in cybercrime in 2016-2023 (by calculating national levels of cybercrime) and to model the mechanisms of combating it in order to form a global, open and safe cyberspace, protect the population from cyber threats and cyber fraud, increase the effectiveness of financial monitoring procedures and control over transactions in cyberspace. The article presents the dominant directions, evolutionary, temporal and spatial patterns of the development of crime in cyberspace, clustering of the countries, and identification of leaders and outsiders in the field of cybercrime (through visualization density maps based on the construction of self-organized Kohonen maps). The results of the calculations confirm a significant increase in the level of cybercrime in the world since 2016 (in particular, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and active digital transformation). A comparative analysis of the indicator across countries made it possible to distinguish those with the highest rates of cybercrime (Slovenia, Iceland, Moldova, Georgia) and those with a significantly higher level of cyber security (Greece, Belgium, France, Germany).