Research Interests
I am a Cybercrime Researcher from Dutch Police East-Netherlands. My research focuses on cybercrime, economics, mathematical modeling, darknet forums, and ransomware. I explore criminal decision-making, intervention strategies, and economic frameworks to understand digital crime patterns.
Publications
Journal Publications (Peer-Reviewed)
- Meurs, T., Junger, M., Cruyff, M., & Van Der Heijden, P. G. (2024). Estimating the Number of Ransomware Attacks. Available at SSRN 4942706.
Download PDF - Meurs, T., Cartwright, E., Cartwright, A., Junger, M., & Abhishta, A. (2024). Deception in double extortion ransomware attacks: An analysis of profitability and credibility. Computers & Security, 138, 103670.
Download PDF - Meurs, T., Junger, M., Abhishta, A., Tews, E., Ratia, E. (2022). COORDINATE: A model to analyse the benefits and costs of coordinating cybercrime. JISIS, 12(4).
Download PDF - Meurs, T., Junger, M., Tews, E., Abhishta, A. (2022). NAS-ransomware: hoe ransomware-aanvallen tegen NAS-apparaten verschillen van reguliere ransomware-aanvallen. Tijdschrift voor Veiligheid, 21(3-4), 69-88.
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Conference Papers (Peer-Reviewed)
- Meurs, T., Hoheisel, R., Junger, M., Abhishta, A., & McCoy, D. (2025). What To Do Against Ransomware? Evaluating Law Enforcement Interventions. In Symposium on Electronic Crime Research, eCrime 2024.
Download PDF - Hoheisel, R., Meurs, T., Junger, M., Tews, E., & Abhishta, A. (2024). Dark Web Dialogues: Analyzing Communication Platform Choices of Underground Forum Users. In Symposium on Electronic Crime Research, eCrime 2024.
Download PDF - Meurs, T., Cartwright, E., Cartwright, A., Junger, M., Hoheisel, R., Tews, E., & Abhishta, A. (2023). Ransomware Economics: A Two-Step Approach To Model Ransom Paid. In 18th Symposium on Electronic Crime Research, eCrime 2023. Best paper award.
Download PDF - Meurs, T., Cartwright, E., & Cartwright, A. (2023). Double-sided Information Asymmetry in Double Extortion Ransomware. In 14th International Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security, GameSec 2023.
Download PDF - Meurs, T., Junger, M., Tews, E., Abhishta, A. (2022). Ransomware: How attacker's effort, victim characteristics and context influence ransom requested, payment and financial loss. In 17th Symposium on Electronic Crime Research, eCrime 2022.
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Posters
- Meurs, T., Junger, M., Abhishta, A., & Tews, E. (2022). How Attackers Determine the Ransom in Ransomware Attacks. In 7th IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (Euro S&P 2022) ResearchGate.
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Books
- Meurs, T. (2025). Double-Extortion Ransomware: A Study of Cybercriminal Profit, Effort, and Risk.
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Teaching Experience
University of Amsterdam (Sep 2015 - Aug 2018)
- TA Mathematics, BSc PPLE
- TA Time Series Analysis, BSc Econometrics
Education
PhD - University of Twente, Cybercrime (2021-2025)
Supervisor: Prof. dr. M. Junger
Thesis: “Double-extortion Ransomware: A Study of Cybercriminal Profit, Effort, and Risk”
MS - University of Amsterdam, Econometrics (2017-2018)
Thesis: “Selection Bias: A Machine Learning Approach”
Advisor: Dr. N.P.A. van Giersbergen
BS - University of Amsterdam, Econometrics (2015-2017)
BS - University of Amsterdam, Psychology (2012-2016)