What Are Cyberspace Crimes?
Cyberspace crimes are the fastest growing challenge for the future of the Internet. As the world's infrastructure becomes more centralized, the potential problems become even greater. Fraud, blackmail, child pornography and cyberterrorism are becoming more common throughout the world. Authorities attempt to control these situations, but the lack of laws and continued advancements in technology present real impediments to properly dealing with these crimes.
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Function
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Cyberspace crimes can range widely in intent and severity. They are perpetrated by an individual or group using a computer or network to commit an act deemed as criminal. Hacking, piracy, child pornography and cyberterrorism are common examples of criminal acts perpetrated using a computer. However, a wide variety of the modern crimes are situated around identity theft or fraud. Elaborate schemes called phishing---setting up scams to acquire information from users---have destroyed many individuals' financial security.
One of the challenges of cybercrimes is the lack of substantial laws. Technology moves at a faster pace than legislation. Additionally, authorities often misunderstand what the crimes entail. Furthermore, most countries deem a crime as a physical act, meaning the loss or theft of data may not constitute a criminal act.
Types
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Some of the most common crimes perpetrated on the Internet or with computers involve the willful destruction or seizing of information. A virus is the most commonly launched attack on a network and involves code that is written to cause some sort of data corruption. Trojan horses are programs or applications that are downloaded to do one thing, but upon installation, function in a different way, usually leading to problems with the system. Time bombs are programs loaded into a system that stay dormant until a certain amount of booting has occurred; then they launch. These usually cause complete system failure. A similar form of virus is called a logic bomb in which the attack is launched only with the introduction or deletion of certain files or applications. All of these forms of code are user-made for malicious intent. The perpetrator is hard to identify, however, due to the revolving nature of these attacks.
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Significance
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Harassment and cyberstalking have become a serious problem. With growing interest in social networking sites, individuals become interested in the online image of certain people and begin to follow their online movements. This can be a case of mere fascination or grooming, in which the perpetrator begins to befriend the subject of their desire for ultimate sexual contact. The opposite can be true as well, in which individuals create false identities to lure unsuspecting victims for sheer excitement or possible sexual experiences. Many of the more popular social networking sites police their users. However, criminals have avoided being caught in various ways, leading to a rise in this illicit activity.
Considerations
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Cyberterrorism is a growing threat to the safety and security of industry and government. Since 2001, organizations and individuals have increasingly made efforts to probe various banking, government and general infrastructure sites to find a way to attack their networks. With commercial and official use of the Internet, especially on private channels, the threat of an attack to destroy sections of the Internet or temporarily halt important communication has become a strong concern for federal agencies. Over the years, they have cataloged numerous attempts to access restricted information or impede commerce through the financial industries.
Another method of cyberterrorism is the spreading of false information to cause panic. The Internet has increasingly been used as a sounding board for terror groups to spread their message and threaten attacks. By simply stating that a certain mall will be bombed on a certain day, they spread fear and cost federal money to investigate what may be a baseless threat.
History
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One of the earliest large cyberspace crimes came in the form of the Melissa worm on March 26, 1999. A coded virus was placed inside a file with access to pornography sites. The virus propagated and spread massively to email servers, overloading their accessibility.
On August 3, 2000, a Canadian teenager going by the name of MafiaBoy was charged with 66 count of illegal access to computers and mischief to data when he attacked various websites like eBay, Amazon.com and Dell. His attacks caused a denial of service and may have cost the economy upwards of a billion dollars.
The Mydoom worm is the largest attack recorded in cybercrime history. The worm is sent to a recipient as a "mail delivery system error" and contains an attachment. When opened, the attachment sends to all the email addresses in a user's account and also sends itself along any peer-to-peer networks. Mydoom then uses the computer's Internet access to attack a website, usually www.sco.com, to cause a denial of service.
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