When we talk about a hacking or ransomware attack we always think about the financial cost. Many times, the psychological impact of the attack on the victim.
According to Professor Mark Button , Director of the Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth, there is a perception that cybercrime is not as devastating as physical crime. However, his research has found that hacking attacks can have a similar impact to crimes such as burglary .
Button's team interviewed 52 victims of hacking and ransomware attacks to assess the impact of cybercrime (hacking, virus infections, denial-of-service attacks , etc.). Cybercrime accounts for about 10% of all reported crimes.
According to Button, some victims feel like victims of a physical attack. Many reported psychological effects such as anger, anxiety, fear, isolation and shame.
"It's stressful, scary in many ways. And it's very upsetting when something you might have worked on for two years just disappears," said one victim, an employee of a small business.
Victims involved in the research experienced financial losses ranging from £2 to £10,000. One company had to pay over £80,000 to deal with the consequences of the attack. Another victim lost £40,000 and 70% of its customers as a result of the hack.
However, the consequences, unrelated to the financial aspect, were more devastating.
“In some cases, victims didn’t lose any money, but the consequences were quite devastating,” Button said. For example, a small business who was the victim of a ransomware attack decided to go back to using paper because he felt too uncomfortable.
“It was probably the most stressful four hours of my career. And I came in, in the morning, expecting to be fired because after all, it's my web server, it's my responsibility to secure it,” said another victim of a hacking attack.
The manager of a small business said he felt anger about the ransomware attack: “There is naturally a feeling of anger that someone would put you through such hardship in an attempt to blackmail you and make money.”
Some victims tried to get the police to take over their case. The research showed that ransomware victims were more likely to get a visit, but in most cases the police there wasn’t much There aren’t enough police officers trained to deal with cybercrime , and even then, these crimes are difficult to investigate.
