This report estimates the cost of pure cyber-crime to individuals in Australia in 2019. A survey was administered to a sample of 11,840 adults drawn from two online panels—one using probability sampling and the other non-probability sampling—with the resulting data weighted to better reflect the distribution of the wider Australian population.

Thirty-four percent of respondents had experienced some form of pure cyber-crime, with 14 percent being victimised in the last 12 months. This is equivalent to nearly 6.7 million Australian adults having ever been the victim of pure cyber-crime, and 2.8 million Australians being victimised in the past year.

Drawing on these population estimates, the total economic impact of pure cyber-crime in 2019 was approximately $3.5 billion. This encompasses $1.9 billion in money directly lost by victims, $597 million spent dealing with the consequences of victimisation, and $1.4 billion spent on prevention costs. Victims recovered $389 million.