Mapping the Growth of Cybercrime Research: A Global Scientometric Analysis

Abstract

In the era of continuous digital transformation, cybercrime and cybersecurity have become important research topics as threats to information systems, networks, and data integrity continue to grow. This research conducts a scientometric analysis of articles published from 2020 to 2024, collected from the Web of Science database using the keywords "cybercrime," "cybersecurity," and "network security." A total of 274 records were obtained, and after filtering out the data for 5 years, the final dataset contained 149 documents. VOSviewer software was used for keyword co-occurrence mapping, bibliographic linking of sources, and cross-country co-authorship. This analysis revealed a strong trend toward research targeting technical solutions to cyber threats, particularly those related to machine learning, deep learning, and behavioral analysis. England, the USA, and India were identified as major centers of international research collaboration. Technical journals such as IEEE Access and Electronics were found to be the primary sources of publication. Conversely, emerging trends such as blockchain, cyber grooming, and deepfakes were also identified as areas of research change. The analysis reveals that research assessing cybercrime is multidisciplinary and global, indicating global collaboration to address complex cybersecurity issues