What is Cyber Crime?
Cyber Crime is among the exploding crimes of today’s age. The fast-pacing internet usage is gauged to bring people closer globally fostering human connectivity, informatisation and communication to a huge extent, making world a smaller place to live in for the internet users.
However, such extensive growth in the number of connected people and devices has given birth to another problem for the people who spend hours and hours surfing the web- which is cyber crime. Cybercrime is a crime that involves some kind of computer or cyber aspect.
In a nutshell, this crime can be committed by anyone with a computer and network. As a result of the industrialization of this type of crime, many people have become a target of hacking, identity theft, malicious software and theft-enabling personal information move far too quickly and conveniently surpassing the conventional law enforcement agencies from one source to another.
A large number of criminals are exploiting the speed, anonymity and convenience that come with the internet to commit a wide range of criminal activities that need no physical or virtual boundaries. These crimes pose serious threats to security, businesses, governments, and citizens and play an aggressive role in facilitating majority of organized terrorism activities and related crimes.
Types of Cyber Crimes
#1 Identity Theft
This is probably the most leading challenge that the authorities have to face as somebody is being a victim of stolen identity every 3 seconds.
During the course of last ten years, the advancements in technology and “informatisation” in the society has witnessed a phenomenal growth as never before in human history.
With such a rapid growth rate, there is widespread insurgency of identity theft. In this type of crime a criminal can have access to one’s private and confidential data including his/her bank account details such as credit/debit card information, social services and other sensitive information to siphon money or to purchase things online in the name of the victim.
The unprecedented magnitude of the problem is resulting in the increase of serious financial losses and corruption and can hammer the victim’s credit history and reputation.
#2 Hacking
In this particular type of crime, the criminal can have access to any piece of information by breaking into the victim’s personal computer. As per the law, hacking is considered as a felony and a punishable offense.
This cybercrime involves the criminal using a variety of software to enter the victim’s computer. In most cases the victim is not aware of the fact that someone is accessing his computer from a remote location.
#3 Cyber Stalking and online Harassment
This type of crime wherein the victim is subjected to a bombardment of online messaging and emails. The scale of this problem is so treacherous that it might lead the victim to acute depression or even worse, suicide.
Cyber stalking is the root cause of many related problems such as blackmail, online harassment, extortion, market manipulation, corporate espionage and planning and executing terrorism.
In usual scenarios, the stalker knows every little detail about the victim and instead of offline stalking, they choose internet for stalking. Cyber stalking can have life-threatening effects and makes the victim’s life miserable and frustrating.
#4 Theft
This type of crime occurs as a result of violating copyrights and illegally downloading music, movies, games and software. Today’s justice system has introduced many laws to prevent people from illegal downloading and is playing a huge role in addressing this kind of cyber crime.
#5 Malicious Software
These include various software available on the internet being used for disrupting a network. The software is used for spreading different kinds of computer viruses, stealing or gaining access to sensitive information or damaging software present in the system.
#6 Child Predation and Abuse
In this type of cyber crime, the offender solicits or blackmails minors via chat rooms for engaging into child pornography.
Measures for tackling Cyber Crime
The widespread global internet penetration through mobile internet access and the continuous deployment of broadband internet infrastructure, poses potential external and internal threats to people, organizations and governments adopting the latest advancements of internet technologies.
The increasing vulnerability of the potential victims that stay online for longer periods of time and share data very frequently, presents imminent risks to information security and data protection.
While law enforcement agencies are trying to keep pace with the ever-rising cyber crime rate, the problem still proves to be a Herculean task. The primary reason behind this collaborative failure is the fact that methods adopted by cybercriminals keep changing too frequently and quickly making it impossible for law enforcement agencies to remain effective.
This is why an efficient and highly effective course of action must be adopted at all individual, institutional and government levels in order to safeguard ourselves from any type of cyber crime.
At individual level, the internet users should be more proactive and well informed before making online transactions especially while online shopping.
The best way to go about it is to shop online through reliable websites both nationally and internationally. Amazon and Ebay are among the most trust-worthy websites and assure safety of sensitive credit and debit information of it’s customers.
Another growing trend to avoid fraudulent purchases is the cash-on-delivery services being offered by many e-commerce companies. Online shopping place such as Kaymu and Myshop have a safe and secure cash-on-delivery system to prevent the chances of any phony transactions.
At institutional and government levels, a lot of homework needs to be done to harness the intelligence of networks and the concerned information regulatory bodies. A relationship of exchanging timely and accurate information using the help of various Internet security organizations and online financial services must be developed to fight against cyber crime.
About the author – :
Thambaru is a passionate blogger, freelancing journalist of Dinamina newspaper and a senior developer at Ceylon Systems. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook for more updates.
