Psychological Impact of Cybercrime

Cybercrime has evolved with time, from an earlier focus on financial fraud, stolen credit card and passwords, often now it revolves around identity theft, harassment and cyberbullying, digital surveillance, sexploitation, child pornography, and a new addition – AI generated deepfakes.

Data now is so readily available in this digital age that your personal, often private details are available over the Internet, such that cybercrime doesn’t just affect our data, but also our mind and emotional wellbeing.

Did you know that a cyberattack occurs every 39 seconds? According to FBI’s data, 33 billion accounts were predicted to be breached in 2023, translating to 97 cybercrime victims per hour.

 So what should you do? Move to the forest and throw away all digital devices and connections?

While this may sound like a great escape, it is not realistic in today’s world. You can, however, increase your awareness and understanding about the cybercrimes, their impact, and be alert so as to not fall prey to such attacks yourself as well as help people around you – at the end you will find some helpful tips for the same.

Cybercrime Mental Health Impact

Cybercrime can leave a long-lasting impact on your psyche, with emotional consequences that are invisible or unseen. A victim of cybercrime can experience emotional distress which can lead to various mental health challenges depending on the type of attack, such as cyberstalking or revenge porn causing deeper trauma and psychological harm and other factors such as severity, familiarity with offender, etc.

There are many negative psychological effects of cyber-attacks, such as:- 

• Sleep disturbances
• Anxiety and paranoia
• Hypervigilance and intrusive thoughts
• Social withdrawal often due to a fear of re-victimization
• Shame, guilt or helplessness, feelings of depression
• Self-blaming, loss of self-esteem
• Suicidal ideation and/or attempts
• Existential crisis or identity crisis in cases of financial ruin or identity theft

Online Exploitation and Mental Health

 Person-centered cybercrime, online exploitation involving cyberstalking, harassment, grooming, sextortion, deepfake pornography, revenge porn, cyberbullying, has become increasingly common.

Can you take a guess how frequently these crimes occur?

Approximately 8.3% of children, or one in twelve children globally have experienced online sexual abuse in the last decade. Many different subtypes of online sexual abuse were identified which are non-consensual image sharing (12.6%), online solicitation (12.5%) and sexual extortion (3.5%).

 It is not only highly prevalent, but now-a-days perpetrators of online exploitation, fraud are becoming more creative so to speak, employing more sophisticated methods which essentially increase the risk of such crimes and also leads to concerns about digital safety. In this digital age, there is an arising mental health crisis due to cyber threats.

Moreover, victims of online sexual exploitation or sexploitation often experience symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, depression and intrusive thoughts, which is referred to as sexploitation trauma. Shame and self-blame are also very common among victims of sextortion or non-consensual image sharing, which can lead to social isolation, negative thoughts and long-term emotional distress.

Sexploitation trauma is also plagued by the permanence of internet, leading to the victim being re-victimized as images resurface online. Re-victimization can cause the individual to experience the trauma of the incident again, and also fear the involvement and commentary of strangers online.

Another specific cybercrime that can severely impact mental health includes AI deepfake pornography, which can cause severe emotional distress, nervous breakdowns, violation, betrayal leading to intrusive thoughts, negative thoughts, suicidal thoughts and hypervigilance. Moreover, the fear of being recognized, exposed or humiliated can lead to social isolation, avoidant behavior, body dysmorphia, self-esteem issues, anxiety, PTSD and severe mental health disorders.

Online exploitation can have severe and negative consequences on mental health of an individual which reinforces the mental health crisis due to cyber threats.

Cyber Fatigue and Digital Burnout

 Increased exposure to digital threats, cybercrime and cyber attacks and even hearing about such incidents can create a stress and fear, or vicarious trauma in any individual.

Have you ever felt tired, numb of being on your device and social media and of a constant reliance on devices? Beware, this could be Cyber Fatigue.

 What does Cyber Fatigue look like?

You might notice symptoms like:

• Emotional numbness towards digital risks, incidents
• General distrust in technology
• Chronic stress and burnout, especially for people who use digital devices for work and pleasure both
• A desire to reduce or stop using devices
• A reduction in mental clarity and productivity

Often this fatigue can impact your professional and personal productivity and overall well-being.

Social Media Account Takeover Stress

 Even social media can sometimes be stressful. Social media account takeover stress is a different type of stress, in which a fear of losing access to or hacking of social media handles, exposure of private messages, fear of identity theft and reputational damage. It can be deeply destabilizing as these days, individuals associate more with their social or online identity than personal identity.

Digital Safety Education and Cybercrime Prevention Tips

 Regularly update passwords and use multi-factor authentication

• Enable auto-updating for software
• Create complex and secure passwords
• Avoid public Wi-Fis
• Be cautious with clicking links and attachments in emails and messages
• Educate on how to identify suspicious emails or fake websites that mimic legitimate ones
• Review social media privacy settings to limit exposure of private information, especially for children
• Learn to identify deepfakes or manipulated media through inconsistencies in audio or visuals
• Log out of devices that you are not using, especially ones that can be accessed by other people
• Awareness programs for children about online harassment, exploitation and acceptable online behavior and safety should be encouraged.
• Many resources can be found for the same such as, Kaspersky’s Internet Safety Tips for Kids, Childnet International, FBI’s Safe Online Surfing Program, INHOPE’s Youth Empowerment Resources.

Cybercrime’s emotional and financial toll is pointing at a mental health crisis as often such incidents lead to development of severe mental health disorders and is a growing concern. Cybercrime can be deeply disturbing, if you or someone you know is struggling with any such incident, report the issue and also address the psychological impact of them. A therapist can help you and provide you with necessary support, find one today through searching for psychologist near me, cyberpsychologist near me, trauma-informed therapist near me, mental health professionals online to find the right resource for you and help you overcome the effects of cybercrime.

At NABHS, we believe in keeping you informed and aware in this digital age, because mental health is always a priority.