Fighting Cyber-Crime Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Fighting Cyber-Crime - Term Paper Example This is because: 1. Every country has their own and separate legal, technical and organizational issues. 2. All information is stored in free-text format. 3. Information keeps changing dynamically. Thus, it has become a biggest international challenge. So how are they fighting against cybercrime? This is the topic of discussion in this task. What is Cybercrime? Cybercrime is any illegal activity that is conducted through the use of computers, the internet and computer network. There are many kinds of cybercrimes that exist: internet fraud, computer hacking, spreading of malicious code or viruses, cyber piracy and many more. And new types of cybercrime keep on being introduced. (Yang, 2008, p. 32). There are many reasons why people commit cybercrime; some of which are as follows: 1. Intellectual: when hackers gain illegal access to information on a secured website or crack passwords. 2. Emotional: when hackers take revenge from any employee of a company by giving threats through the u se of emails. 3. Financial: when hackers gain money through internet fraud. 4. Accessibility: when people download pirated software from the internet. Hence, cybercrime is not an accidental approach; it is an intentional act to gain some or the other kind of benefit on the part of the person committing it. (Cross and Shinder, 2008, p. 29). Some Examples of Cybercrimes Bob Smith who was a residence of Oklahoma, observed that his credit card had been used by some criminal who did fraudulent purchases. Two accounts had been opened with his information in two different banks. The criminal further applied for a loan in Dallas to buy a car and he changed the address of Bob to some address in Dallas which was a fake address. This was an example of use of internet fraud which is a cybercrime. (Cross and Shinder, 2008, p. 4). On 8 March, 2008, some data thieves broke into computers of chain of supermarkets Sweetbay and Hannaford Brothers, and stole around 4.2 billion credit card and debit ca rd numbers. A person’s email account password was hacked and his account was misused for sending malicious code to the contacts in the person’s address book. As the people receiving the malicious code think that it is coming from their friend, they open it and execute the attachments which infect their computer with the malicious code. (Nagpal, 2008, p. 133). Fighting Against Cybercrime The police should not be the only one involved in fighting against cybercrime. Legislators should also perform their part by making appropriate laws. Furthermore, the IT community and the society themselves should report the incidents of cybercrimes to the higher authorities as well as they should take measures to prevent themselves from becoming victim to these crimes. To fight against cybercrime, the following steps are being taken: 1. Educating the IT Professionals: As they already understand computer security, IT professionals are further made aware of computer crimes in which they are educated about the law which states what things come under computer crime and what things do not. The IT professionals are also being included in the law making in which they share their expertise. Furthermore, they are being involved with the police in the investigation of any computer crime scene so that they can give technical help and advice through their expertise.