Assignment 2: Digital Computer Crime

Running Head: DIGITAL COMPUTER CRIMES 0

Digital Computer Crime

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Course name

Date

Digital computer crime entails the unauthorized use of computer to carry out self benefiting activities like illegally transferring funds, alteration of information, and alteration of data or property entitled to others (Wall, 2015). These activities harm other people and the society at large at it becomes very risky to find oneself a victim of computer crime. Nevertheless, with a growing internet, amazing and very many good things in the internet, one cannot completely secure themselves from the computer crimes which grow at the pace of internet usage. Computer crime pose a threat to all and sundry including large business organizations, the governmental institutions, and the private users including the most casual, and therefore need to be dealt with thoroughly to secure the internet users.

The Major Categories of Computer Crimes

The major categories of these crimes are hacking, theft, cyber stalking, and spam, which are a real threat to internet users (Choo, 2014). To begin with, hacking is the breaking into a person’s computer and their personal information accessed. This activity involves the use of malware software that enters onto the computers without the users’ knowledge like viruses, Trojans and worms. Once the access is granted, the hackers cause major harms to the victims and could lead to lose of money and information. In most cases these software will request for money to remove them which an experienced user would pay. On the other hand, the hackers can break into your computer and illegally steal data from it or alter the information contained therein. One should be very keen in deciding which software to open or not in addition to making sure their computers and systems are impenetrable to unauthorized information.

The second major category of computer crime is theft which includes both information and identity. Theft to information happens when downloading of copyrighted information like software, music, movies, and games is done without the permission of the owner. Identity theft on the other hand entails accessing other people’s personal information and using it for personal gain. This includes stealing of account login information and passwords for online banks, and accessing social security numbers of other people, pretending to be them and enjoying their privileges. The victims whose information is accessed lose very large sums of money bringing them to economic and budget crisis and shocks.

The third one, cyber stalking is the use of people’s information to repeatedly distresses them. This is done by the use of messages and emails over the internet. When someone uses the internet and leaves information about them in the internet, criminals access this information and use it to harass them sexually, cause anger to them or to build enmity. It is very advisable to be careful with what we say or sent to others over the internet.

The fourth in our list of the major categories of computer crimes is spam which is the annoying reception of email messages which constantly prompt computer users to open them. These messages tend to be very irritating, and also pose a very big danger to an organization and private information. If one clicks to them, they are capable of launching attacks on an information and data system destroying them completely. For example, botnets which are systems designed to destroy a governmental systems are used to spread these messages.

Forms of Computer Crimes

Computer crimes take many forms ranging from attractive provocative software, seductive e-mail messages, diversion of users attention to fake websites, and tricking of users to connect to their own servers instead of the real servers (Choo, 2014). Computers criminals have come up with very many different forms to launch their malicious intentions and achieve their goals. They have designed software which prompts the user to open them by seemingly helpful only to launch programs to destroy their information, data and or destroy their systems.

Further email messages which come as spam, have been designed to pop up in the mails of users, which once opened cause a destruction to information data and destruction of systems of the organization. Still there is the forms of websites which are designed to look similar to some other websites which once the users access them their private information like passwords and sensitive information is taken and used to access to their private information like emails or bank accounts. Again these servers and websites are likely to lead users to explicit uncensored information not healthy for them therefore decaying their morals.

Hacking at the moment presents the greatest threat of the computer crimes since it takes forms of software that are constantly being accessed by the users on daily occasions (Wall, 2015). Activities like software updates, downloads of new software to improve our performance in work occur often in our lives. The downloading of this software and there are usually very provocative and aggressive internet users and upcoming software developers cannot escape the tarp of downloading these malicious software. Again the process of installing of this software can happen in the back ground without the knowledge of the user making it very difficult to avoid them.

Cyber Security

Cyber security and law enforcement in the U.S. play a very important role in ensuring safety for internet users. The government, law enforcement agencies and the courts work together to ensure this security to our nation. The law enforcement for example conducts investigation of the different cyber crimes ranging from hacking, theft, and cyber stalking, spam and child exploitation (Dilek, Çakır, & Aydın, 2015). These agency then goes ahead to apprehend and prosecute those held responsible for such crimes. These law agencies are organized into departments to help deal with specialized cases in the most effective manner possible. For example the homeland security deals (DHS) deals with high impact criminal issues, recruitment and training of experts of cyber crime, development of standardized methods of dealing with cyber crime, and facilitation of sharing of the cyber security resources (Choo, 2014)

Moreover components of DHS like U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Immigration have been divided further into subsystems that deal better with crimes on the internet. The government on the other hand has put in place laws and consequences to be taken against those found violating them. In conclusion, it is of paramount for the society to grow at the pace of technological growth by the use of the internet to access the whole world as globe. At the same time the users must be made aware of the threats that come with internet usage with education on how best they can deal with these crimes. Further the government need to pull efforts in dealing with these criminals to help protect the user, corporations and the government agencies against threats posed by these criminals. The users need to restrict themselves to only the ethical uses of the internet and avoid as much as they can to avoid acts which would threaten others use of the internet.

References

Choo, K. K. R. (2014). A conceptual interdisciplinary plug-and-play cyber security framework. In ICTs and the Millennium Development Goals (pp. 81-99). Springer US.

Dilek, S., Çakır, H., & Aydın, M. (2015). Applications of Artificial Intelligence Techniques to Combating Cyber Crimes: A Review. arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.03552.

Singh, M., Husain, J. A., & Vishwas, N. K. (2014). A Comprehensive Study of Cyber Law and Cyber Crimes. International Journal of IT, Engineering and Applied Sciences Research (IJIEASR), 3(2), 20-24.

Wall, D. S. (2015). The Internet as a conduit for criminal activity.