The landscape of cybercrime and cybersecurity threats, further exacerbated by COVID-19 pandemic and migration of both work environments and social interaction to online, is quickly changing and adapting to new realities, introducing new threats and challenges for the governments, the private sector and the general public. Despite growing awareness, the real picture as to what are these threats, how much reporting of cybercrime and cybersecurity incidents is actually done, as well as the overall feeling of security in cyberspace for the general public – all these remain relatively unexplored in the Eastern Partnership region.
In this context, the CyberEast project, funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and the CyberSecurity EAST project, funded by the European Union, aim to support the countries of the Eastern Partnership in improving both cybersecurity and cybercrime-related capabilities of criminal justice and security communities. These communities, however, must be more clearly guided by needs and concerns of the general public and by valid societal perception of threats and challenges of cybercrime and cybersecurity – and here, measuring the real use of cybercrime/security incident reporting systems and assessing ways in which the general public perceives security and criminal justice response to threats of cyberspace, is of utmost importance.
Following the extended preparatory stage involving work on methodology and survey design, the public opinion survey projects in each of the Eastern Partnership states (except Belarus) are starting their piloting and field research efforts in October 2021, with final reports expected by end of January 2022. Results of these research projects will be shared only with the respective countries and will provide reliable and relevant data for shaping policies, strategies and capacity building response to cybercrime and electronic evidence in the near and mid-term.
