Latent groups of cybersecurity preparedness in Europe: Sociodemographic factors and country-level contexts

Typology of Cybercrime Victimization in Europe: A Multilevel Latent Class Analysis

“…More importantly, at the country level, we found an interesting pattern linked to location and national prosperity levels. Western and Northern European countries including France, Luxembourg, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands have populations with more than 20 percent of online users in the “at-risk class.” On the other hand, online users in countries such as Portugal, Greece, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria, located in Eastern and Southern Europe, make up less than 10 percent of the “cautious class.” This finding is particularly interesting to juxtapose with Lee and Kim (2020), who found in their LCA study of cybersecurity preparedness in Europe that countries like France, Luxembourg, Sweden, and the Netherlands are classified as “well-prepared” in terms of cybersecurity preparedness. However, they also found that these countries have higher levels of cautious and disciplined online users and lower levels of uninformed users.…”

“…On the other hand, online users in countries such as Portugal, Greece, Slovakia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria, located in Eastern and Southern Europe, make up less than 10 percent of the "cautious class." This finding is particularly interesting to juxtapose with Lee and Kim (2020), who found in their LCA study of cybersecurity preparedness in Europe that countries like France, Luxembourg, Sweden, and the Netherlands are classified as "wellprepared" in terms of cybersecurity preparedness. However, they also found that these countries have higher levels of cautious and disciplined online users and lower levels of uninformed users.…”

“…We performed MLCA to show that latent, heterogeneous groups of cybercrime victimization exist both at the individual and country levels in Europe. Due to its exploratory nature, as well as MCLA's methodological assumptions, LCA is often used without assuming a specific number of groups will be found (Burruss et al, 2019;Lee & Kim, 2020).…”

“…Global cybersecurity index. The Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI), developed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), measures state commitment against cybercrime across five dimensions: legal, technical, organizational, capacity building, and cooperation (Lee & Kim, 2020). 2 GCI measures the degree to which each member state is responsive to cybersecurity threats and is committed to promoting cybersecurity, with higher GCI scores indicating that states have more robust approaches to cybersecurity (ITU, 2018(ITU, , 2020.…”

“…Latent class analysis (LCA) is a relative new methodology with growing popularity in the field of criminology due to its ability to expose unique subtypes of individuals in a dataset (Fox & DeLisi, 2018; Fox & Farrington, 2012; Higgins et al, 2009; Lee & Kim, 2020). The method is particularly valuable for identifying differences and complexities within the realm of cybercrime (Fox & Holt, 2021).…”