After reviewing the content in Week #1's folders, please submit an initial discussion board post on your understanding of how cybercrime evolved into a worldwide crisis. Provide a detailed summary. Th

Brennan (2010) submits that Cybercrime differs from crime primarily in the way it is committed: Criminals use guns, whereas cybercriminals use computer technology. Most of the cybercrime we see today simply represents the migration of real -world crime into cyberspace. Cyberspace becomes the tool criminals use to commit old crimes in new ways. Cybercrime The Emergence of Cybercrime: 1950 - 1990 Computer crime in the 1960`s and 1970`s differed from the crime we deal with today. There was no internet; mainframes were not networked to other computers (Brenner, 2010, p. 10).

Most of these crimes were inside jobs, because the process to crack the mainframes was so cumbersome and too technologically -advanced for the time. Cybercrime The Emergence of Cybercrime: 1950 - 1990 The crimes committed in this era all had one thing in common:

The victims were a company or government agency because large entities were the only ones who used mainframe computers.

Using computers to harm individuals do not become a problem until the 1980`s when the personal computer appeared (Brennan, 2010, pp. 12 - 13). Cybercrime The Emergence of Cybercrime: 1950 - 1990 Hacking found its origins at MIT in Cambridge, MA in the 1950s, where students were able to make the mainframe computers merely “do things”.

In the 1970`s, MIT hackers would use their knowledge to conduct practical jokes and pranks around campus; e.g., elevators, cookie monster, etc. Cybercrime The Emergence of Cybercrime: 1950 - 1990 As the 1980`s turned into the 1990`s, hacking was changing. Personal computers and software — including the software being developed specifically to facilitate hacking — were much more common. In the 1970`s and most of the 1980`s, it was a challenge "just to find a system to hack"; by the 1990`s, the Internet was starting to link everything, which meant hackers had thousands, and eventually millions, of targets (Brennan, 2010, pp. 17 -18). Cybercrime The Contexts of Cybercrime: 1. Cybercrimes against individuals 2. Cybercrimes against groups 3. Cybercrimes against property 4. Cybercrimes against corporations 5. Cybercrimes against governments Cybercrime Cybercrimes Against Individuals: a. Identity Theft / Fraud b. Sexual Predation c. Confidence Tricks / Con -Artists d. Financial Predation Cybercrime Cybercrimes Against Groups: a. Hacktivists i. ``Digital Zapatismo`` (more on them later…) b. System Predators Cybercrime Cybercrimes Against Property: a. Violations of intellectual property rights i. Napster ii. Bootleg movies Cybercrime Cybercrimes Against Corporations: a. Denial of Service ( DoS ) b. Spamming c. Unauthorized Access d. Financial Manipulations e. Violations of Record -Keeping Laws Cybercrime Cybercrimes Against Government(s): a. Cyber -Terrorism (e.g. ISIS/ISIL) b. Cyber -War (State -Actors, Gov`t. vs. Gov`t.) Cybercrime References Brenner, S. W. (2010). Cybercrime: criminal threats from cyberspace . Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger . Hayes, R. M. (2010, May 24). Cybercrime and its impact on new media and discourse [Scholarly project]. Retrieved January 17, 2017.