A new study has named Nigeria among the top five global hotspots for cybercriminals, which could further worsen the country’s external image and complicate opportunities for its citizens. 

The World Cybercrime Index published on April 10 by the University of Oxford and the University of New South Wales Canberra said the West African economic hub came only behind Russia, Ukraine, China and the United States, respectively. 

The survey, which Oxford said was the first of its kind to ever be compiled and published, suggested that Nigerian cybercriminals “are engaged in less technical forms of cybercrime” compared to the other countries, whose criminals deploy sophisticated tools to penetrate some of the most secure network infrastructure around the globe. 

One of the authors, Miranda Bruce from the University of Oxford, said in a statement that the study will enable the public and private sectors to focus their resources on key cybercrime hubs and spend less time and funds on cybercrime countermeasures in countries where the problem is not as significant.

“The research that underpins the index will help remove the veil of anonymity around cybercriminal offenders, and we hope that it will aid the fight against the growing threat of profit-driven cybercrime,” the expert added. “We now have a deeper understanding of the geography of cybercrime, and how different countries specialise in different types of cybercrime. 

Fellow co-author and associate professor Jonathan Lusthaus said the index could help illuminate what is often categorised as difficult-to-trace activity. 

“Due to the illicit and anonymous nature of their activities, cybercriminals cannot be easily accessed or reliably surveyed. They are actively hiding,” he said. “If you try to use technical data to map their location, you will also fail, as cybercriminals bounce their attacks around internet infrastructure across the world.”

“The best way to determine where these offenders are actually located is to survey those whose job it is to track them,” he added.

The researchers believed they would expand the study to investigate whether different national characteristics, such as education, GDP, or corruption levels, impact the quantity of a country’s cybercrime.

The research traced some of the widely known cybercrime threats from Nigeria, including advance fee fraud, business email compromise, online auction fraud, identity theft and money laundering.

A spokesman for Nigeria’s anti-graft office did not immediately return a request seeking comments about the agency’s ongoing efforts to curb the menace.