Internet crime: is crime committed on the Internet, using the
Internet and by means of the Internet.
Computer crime is a
general term that embraces such crimes as phishing, credit card
frauds, bank robbery, illegal downloading, industrial espionage, child
pornography, kidnapping children via chat rooms, scams,
cyber-terrorism, creation and/or distribution of viruses, spam and so
on. All such crimes are computer related and facilitated crimes.
With the evolution of
the Internet, along came another revolution of crime where the
perpetrators commit acts of crime and wrongdoing on the World Wide
Web. Internet crime takes many faces and is committed in diverse
fashions. The number of users and their diversity in their makeup has
exposed the Internet to everyone. Some criminals in the Internet have
grown up understanding this superhighway of information, unlike the
older generation of users. This is why Internet crime has now become a
growing problem in the United States. Some crimes committed on the
Internet have been exposed to the world and some remain a mystery up
until they are perpetrated against someone or some company.
The different types of
Internet crime vary in their design and how easily they are able to be
committed. Internet crimes can be separated into two different
categories. There are crimes that are only committed while being on
the Internet and are created exclusively because of the World Wide
Web. The typical crimes in criminal history are now being brought to a
whole different level of innovation and ingenuity. Such new crimes
devoted to the Internet are email “phishing”, hijacking domain names,
virus immersion, and cyber vandalism. A couple of these crimes are
activities that have been exposed and introduced into the world.
People have been trying to solve virus problems by installing virus
protection software and other software that can protect their
computers. Other crimes such as email “phishing” are not as known to
the public until an individual receives one of these fraudulent
emails. These emails are cover faced by the illusion that the email is
from your bank or another bank. When a person reads the email he/she
is informed of a problem with he/she personal account or another
individual wants to send the person some of their money and deposit it
directly into their account. The email asks for your personal account
information and when a person gives this information away, they are
financing the work of a criminal.
Statistics:
The statistics that
have been obtained and reported about demonstrate the seriousness
Internet crimes in the world. Just the "phishing" emails mentioned in
a previous paragraph produce one billion dollars for their
perpetrators (Dalton 1). In a FBI survey in early 2004, 90 percent of
the 500 companies surveyed reported a security breach and 80 percent
of those suffered a financial loss (Fisher 22). A national statistic
in 2003 stated that four billion dollars in credit card fraud are lost
each year. Only two percent of credit card transactions take place
over the Internet but fifty percent of the four billion, mentioned
before, are from the transaction online (Burden and Palmer 5). All
these finding are just an illustration of the misuse of the Internet
and a reason why Internet crime has to be slowed down.
Stopping the problem:
The question
about how to police these crimes has already been constructed, but
this task is turning out to be an uphill battle. Since the first
computer crime law, the Counterfeit Access Device and Computer Fraud
and Abuse Act of 1984, the government has been trying to track down
and stop online criminals. The FBI has tried many programs and
investigations in order to deter Internet crime, like creating an
online crime registry for employers (Metchik 29). The reality is that
Internet criminals are rarely caught. One reason is that hackers will
use one computer in one country to hack another computer in another
country. Another eluding technique used is the changing of the emails,
which are involved in virus attacks and “phishing” emails so that a
pattern cannot be recognized. An individual can do their best to
protect themselves simply by being cautious and careful. Internet
users need to watch suspicious emails, use unique passwords, and run
anti-virus and anti-spyware
software. Do not open any email or run programs from unknown sources.
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