New research reveals the globe's cybercrime hotspots

A new study from researchers in Australia and the UK has mapped out the sources of cybercrime around the world.

Researchers measured a country's scale of cyberattacks based on categories including impact, professionalism, technical skill, money laundering, and identity theft to deliver a score out of 100.

Australia, a comparative minnow in the world of big-time hacking, only came in at 34th with a score of 0.95.

Here are the top 10 on the groundbreaking new World Cybercrime Index.

India was 10th with a score of 6.13.

Co-author of the study, Dr Miranda Bruce from UNSW Canberra and the University of Oxford, said 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.

Brazil's score of 8.93 saw it come in ninth.

The data for the Index was gathered through a survey of 92 leading cybercrime experts from around the world who are involved in cybercrime intelligence gathering and investigations.

The UK was eighth with a score of 9.01.

The survey asked the experts to consider five major categories of cybercrime, nominate the countries that they consider to be the most significant sources of each of these types of cybercrime, and then rank each country according to the impact, professionalism, and technical skill of its cybercriminals.

North Korea made the list at seventh, with a score of 10.61.

Another co-author of the study, Associate Professor Jonathan Lusthaus from the University of Oxford in the UK, said cybercrime has largely been an invisible phenomenon because offenders often mask their physical locations by hiding behind fake profiles and highly technical protections.

Romania was sixth with a score of 14.83.

"The best means we have to draw a picture of where these offenders are actually located is to survey those whose job it is to track these people," Lusthaus said.

Nigeria, with a score of 21.28, was the only African country inside the top 10 at fifth spot.

The US scored 25.01 to come in fourth.

China, with 27.86 per cent, made the top three.

War-torn Ukraine was the second most prolific nation for cybercrime with a score of 36.44.

And their invaders, Russia, outstripped the lot.

Russia scored 58.39 on the Index, well ahead of all others.

The data has been published in the journal PLOS One.