Computer Crime Defined
Today, the society is becoming fast and advanced because of the innovations and technologies. Part of this advancement includes continuous improvement of the technology. There are many people around the technology and many times they do not realize it properly. In present time, the computer systems practically run much of the world. The computer systems run most of the business technologies to operate effectively in the market. In the time of technology, computer crime is becoming a critical issue for the society. The growing dependency of the world on the technology is the cause of susceptibility of the world. Although there are many steps taken to protect and prevent from the computer crime but with the continuous use of technology, it is quite difficult (Whitman & Mattord, 2011). There is the need for the precautions in deal with the issue of the computer crime. The computer crime includes various spectrums of the crimes and many times make crimes. The world has become overly dependent on the technology and the criminals are taking advantage of this situation for their personal benefits. They are able to make crimes easily and in many cases, the people who are victims can make themselves targets for the criminals by not protecting their presence in the technological world. People undoubtedly become more dependent on the technology and with this; they are becoming more careless about their important information. This report focuses on the ethical issues related to the computer crime in the information system. Along with this, the report provides some recommendations for the users to prevent from the issue of the computer crime.
In current time, when various law organizations converse about the computer crime, they may have very diverse assumptions about the category of crime reasons. The research question related to the issue of computer crime is as follows:
- Does computer crime includes those crimes in which the computer system and internet are required?
- Do the burglaries of the computer system and laptops comprise computer offense?
- Are conventional crimes such as burglary, fraud and stalking are now using digital resources for the computer related misdeeds or the old ways of crimes includes a new means of exploit?
- Are existing laws and regulations appropriate and suitable to deal with the computer related issues or there is the need of new legal frameworks?
The above discussed queries will be addressed in the report by the proper research. There is the need to understand the challenges related to the new forms of crime by the law enforcement agencies. There is the requirement to determine the changing nature and forms of the crime in the society. To achieve this, the standardized definitions are required. The previous chief of the Los Angeles Police department’s Internet Unit, Marc Goodman has provided the details about the criminal facts i.e. it is crucial as it permits various people such as investigators, lawyers and officers to inspect wisely in the specified illegal activities. Along with this, usually established definitions help in the aggregation of the statistics by which law organizations are able to examine the unidentified criminal patterns and threats (Anderson & Gardner, 2015).
So, uniform definitions for the computer crime are important and necessary for the deeply argument related to the known factors and analyzing the ideas to deal with the criminal offense. Further, the creation of uniform definitions will be helpful for the various law enforcement agencies to understand their role along with the required resources.
The computer crime basically can be defined as the criminal acts implemented by the use of computer. The computer crimes include many types of crime as many crimes are only possible due to the access of the computers and the growing level of technology. It is observed that the illegal activities were also presented in past days when the technology was not so developed in those days, these crimes have become easier to commit by the criminals. As time changes, the computer crime will continue to grow in the society. By focusing on various presented definitions of the computer crime, better ideas to deal with the computer offense can be generated. Some researchers have defined the cyber offense as the offense that uses or involves a computer. Further, The Department of Justice has described the cyber offense as the desecration of the illegal activities that includes the awareness of technological system and equipments for its examination, and prosecution. Definitions used by the business software alliances, awareness organization and public education are too limited. They consider the computer crime as the unlawful activity with the use of electronic system to impact the safety of computer data and computer systems. The organizations consider this as computer related crimes which are simply linked to the computer resources. In the computer crime, there is the unauthorized use of the computer resources. In general, there should be safeguard against the unauthorized access of computer systems and the data stored on them (Vyas & Dewanjee, 2016).
Cyber War and Cyber Crime Prevention
Cyber war can be described as the process the nation-state in which the computers or networks of other countries are introduced with the aim of damage or destruction. The cyber warfare is the kind of warfare that damages the computers by the internet based activity. Internet is the mode of easy access by which any person can attack on individual’s security. The attacks of the criminals by internet is difficult to associate, difficult to smuggle and undetectable. To deal with the attack of the criminals, it is important to impose team network security in the business by the managers. The team network security can be described as the actions against the attacks and cyber crimes on the corporate resources by interlopers who are not authorized to access of these resources. It is observed that 54% of American companies were attacked by the hackers during last few years. Due to the hacking, companies faced total loss of $137 million in those years. The UNICEF, CIA, Pentagon, the UN and other famous organizations were also faced the issues by those people who have much knowledge about this field. Further, hackers take long time to hack a system. Along with this, they are using sophisticated methods to violate a computer system. A hacker basically enters in the restricted area to get access of the unauthorized and confidential information of individual (Broadhurst et al, 2014).
In such manner, there is the need of the new policies in the computer crime prevention. Some of the crime related to computer which is as follows:
This is one of the most popular computer crime in the society. This basically means illegal activities in the various systems of computers with the intention of offense or illegal access to the computer sustained by the government entity. The computer trespass can be referred as the hacking to something which is often viewed as the hobby, but in reality that is a crime. Although the hackers are aware about their unlawful and illegal activities but they enjoy their activities for their personal benefits. In the technological driven era, so many people learn from watching various shows on television and they implement this on hacking the important data from the computers unethically (Etter, 2001).
Fraud can be described as the act to cheat the person, government agency or corporation for the personal benefits. Fraud is one of those crimes that include many variations and it has existence since long before the technology. Fraud is one of various crimes that are easier to commit due to the use of computer and technology. For instance, in the internet banking, it can be seen how it is easy for someone to gain the access the information of other person. Further, wire fraud is the fraudulent scheme that uses the international wire or other electronic communications. The computer crime can be characterized into three stages i.e. parallel the three stages of data processing: input tampering, throughput tampering and output tampering. This simply reveals that at any point of information, the crime can happen. Although there are security messages, but there is no any proper way to guarantee the security of any information put out on the web from anyone (Dashora, 2011).
Types of Computer Crime
Computer fraud is the division of the cyber crime that is considered by the law agencies. The hackers basically use equipments and internet resources and computer to mislead and misrepresent the information of other persons. According to the Department of Justice, the deceitful actions are occurring due to use of computer and internet systems and the old hacking activities are increased due to the development of various new technologies in the society. The internet fraud is the fraud which uses many factors and components of the internet to carry out the intended fraudulent activities (Gercke, 2011).
Phishing
According to the Anti-Phishing working group, Phishing can be described as the form of online hacking which can be done by sending the emails by the fraud website to attract the recipients. The objective of this activity is to hack the bank details of people like account usernames, pin number of credit card, passwords and safety numbers etc. Identity theft can be described as the act of stealing of the identification information of real person or theft based on creating fictitious identification of a person. The identity theft is very easy for the criminals as many people leave their banking and other details on the various online shopping sites while doing shopping. With the most computer crimes, especially in the issue of online identity theft, pay attention when they face any kind of losses. So, there is the lack of precautions and that is the biggest problem of the society.
White-Collar Crime
This type of crime is basically a form of illegal activity which has aim to achieve benefits for themselves in terms of economic and financial benefits. This type of offense occurs when the hackers try to steal the identity of individuals for their personal advantages. The white-collar crime is popular everywhere in the world and now it is becoming the serious issue in each country. In China, bank fraud is the serious offense related to white-collar and that is the reason of loss of billions of the dollars annually. This is measured as the illegal activity and the death penalty is imposed on that criminal who is involved in this type of illegal activity. Further, in the country America, there is no death penalty for this crime, but criminals have to face same loss for this crime. As similar other offense, this is also a serious issue as most of the time, people do not realize what is happening until they face big loss due to this crime (Cheng & Ma, 2009).
Combating crime
Due to use of the internet and all the possibilities, the criminologists have to rethink and redefine their views on the crime. All the implanted precautions are really very little to deal with the computer crime. The biggest things for the people to be smart about what information they put out on the internet and what information they let get out. The computer crime includes various forms of crime due to the computer access. Combating crime is difficult as it is impossible to trace many of the crimes. The overlaps of many crimes together make another crime possible for the criminals (Al-Alawi, 2014).
Fraud and Illegal Access to Computer Systems
Theft of computer offense
This offense basically involves different kind of theft. In this type of criminal offense, the hackers take support from internet, take access of the individuals account and remove their data from the account. The removal data and information may include programs, money, computer results, data and many other functions. Along with this, changing computer input or output without taking any permission or authority, misusing or destroying the proprietary information, and using the computer resources without any kind of authority are considered as theft-related computer crime.
Internet piracy is one of the most popular forms of theft in the technological environment. This is the process to using someone’s online material without taking their permission. In last few years, it is observed that private and law organizations are more focused and concentrated on stopping these offenses. Some organizations are using law and criminal related laws and regulations to prevent from the piracy (Gaur & Jethwani, 2015).
Cyber stalking
The cyber stalking is the new form of established stalking. The old form of this offense includes threatening or irritating actions of someone such as appearing at the home of person, following a person, making threatening phone calls or leaving message or objects. Cyber Stalker includes the exploit of computer systems in perpetration of those described activities. Criminals can do cyber stalk by conveying threatening or distressing communications to others by the immediate messaging, emails, or by posting the messages on the chat rooms or websites (Agustina & Insa, 2011).
Spam
Spam mail is one more type of cyber offense. Spam mail can be described as the sending e-mails in bulk that proposes any receivers to deal on the specific product or service. The aim of the spam mail is to make the consumers think that they are getting information about the actual product or service at very low prices. Further, when transaction can happen, the dispatcher of the spam mail asks for the money, personal information and number of credit card. The customers share their personal data and the never get that product mentioned in the spam mail.
This is not a report about the social science research. So, many discussions of the computer crime seem to take place. In short, this report focuses on some fundamentals of research design so that people will be able to judge how much trust to put in computer crime research results. The research is based on the secondary data accretion. The data will be collected from various articles, journals, and books. The secondary research is done on the basis of broadcast media, literature, publications and nonhuman origins. The research uses qualitative methodology to analyze the research questions. Qualitative research in this case is more effective as compared to quantitative research. In order to achieve proper data, various theoretical and pragmatic methods are used in the methods of research. In the theoretical methods of research, historical method is used to give information about computer crime and network security (Warikoo, 2014).
To analyze the understanding and knowledge about the cyber crime, the surveys will be conducted in among 400 students in various Universities in UK. More than 90% of the respondents of this survey are full time students in the Universities as it would be expected that the large number of respondents will be between 18 to 29 years of age.
In the research method, there will be the form of a questionnaire based on the perception of the cyber crime to the group of the students who are studying in various Universities of the United Kingdom. Along with this, one of the most important concept will be tested by this survey i.e. users’ awareness about cyber crime. In the first stage of survey, the survey forms will be given to the sample populations. All the respondents will be asked to provide some information based on their perception on cyber crime. A survey will also be developed by using questionnaire methodology. The research will use the combination of close questions and some open comments in the questionnaire. In some questions, the respondents are needed to yes or no. By the closed questions, the scope of the study will be limited for the responses. The respondents will be asked to answer the questions based on their perception of cyber crime. The questionnaire is described in the appendix (Vlek et al, 2012).
In the research, the measurements for the literature are the research theme and year of issuing. Various online libraries and journal article will be used for approach the data related to computer crime. A library is the combination of resources, services and sources that provides much information about the research topic. It is basically organized and maintained by the public body, an individual or an organization. In formal sense, library is the collected work of various books. So, for the proper research, help of library has taken. For the research, an efficient approach is used to gather most of the information and data from different resources. This research includes two parts, first is secondary research in which various research papers, database and electronic journals are used and observed. Other is qualitative research will be done based on the survey and questionnaire.
To understand the nature and functions of the computer crime and network security, the qualitative descriptive method is the most effective method to gather and analyze the data because of closeness, adaptive nature and flexibility of the topic. Along with this, another characteristic of this kind of research is to monitor and identify the unfairness so, including the impact on the data gathering and analysis rather than ignoring them. So, the data interpretation in the qualitative design is an effective process for the research on computer crime. The gathered data is descriptive and contributes significantly in this research.
Qualitative research
As compared to the quantitative research, the qualitative research includes theoretical and descriptive matters for the analysis. The methods of the qualitative research are primarily interpersonal, focus group and in-depth consultations. This type of research is open-ended and explorative. In this research, small numbers of people are questioned in-depth, and the small number of group is focused. The participants in the research process are asked for reply to the general questions.
Consideration of qualitative research
There are some reasons to consider the qualitative method for this research. The qualitative research measures focuses on the universal law to develop the static reality. Along to analyze the current issue, it is vital to have some effective strategies in the decision making process.
The criminals are characterized by mass media that hack the credit card codes and use those codes for their personal benefits. Along with this, there are hackers who hack the airport networking system to produce disorder and confusion in the aircrafts and flight schedules. So, in present time, hacking and computer crime is the major concern for the legislators, officials and businessmen. Each and every organization should be active in preventing the computer systems by the hackers and unlawful activities. In this manner, continuous information, time and reliability is the key advantage for the business. Now days, hacking are very easy as if a person has online access and he knows how to send or read emails, he can start hacking easily (Das & Nayak, 2013).
Computer crime is the threat for the network security not only in the organizations but in all over the world including various countries. There is the statistics by which the threat of the computer crime can easily be analyzed. (Appendix)
In the survey, the participants will be asked to respond the answers via email. The results were communicated via email and the participants will asked to read and respond to the question asked in the survey question. Participants are asked to elaborate their experiences on the cyber crime and user awareness. The end result will in the descriptive view of the decision that will be made to promote the user awareness to reduce the impact of cyber crime (Ionescu, Mirea & Blajan, 2011). The risk of virus attack is present in all over the world which can be seen in the graph (Appendix).
To aware people about the computer crime and to implement the safety measures, it is important to have proper plan in the business. This report provides an effective e project plan to deal with the issue of computer crime in the society. The objective of the project plan is to provide general awareness related to general awareness and cyber crime, to understand the cyber crime procedures, to identify the internet scam and to learn how to keep away from being a victim. In the project plan, it is important to ensure the confidentiality, availability and the integrity of the cyber security and computer devices. The major objective of project strategies is crime prevention and criminal justice to ensure the rules of law applied on the online environment. The cyber security strategies prevents from the attacks of confidentially and integrity of the individual’s personal information. So, the project plan of cyber security strategies is interdisciplinary and includes various stakeholders. There are following steps in the project plan by which the computer crime can be prevented:
Keep the computer system up to date
The cyber criminals use much software to attack the computer systems frequently. Most of the window based systems are configured to download the software and update it automatically. By updating the computer system, the cyber criminal will not be able to find the flaws in the software packages. This will also helpful in preventing the attacks from the criminals who use the software to break the systems (Hunton, 2010).
Secure configuration of the system
It is crucial for the computers that they are configured to the security level. That is very comfortable and appropriate for the users of the computer systems. Using too much security in the computer system can have negative impact on the users. By using the ‘help’ feature, the operating system can answer many of the questions related to this field.
Install or update antivirus software
The antivirus software is basically designed to prevent the malicious activities which destroy the computer system. The antivirus detects malicious code such as virus and removes it from the system. It is well known that virus affects the computer systems without the knowledge of the users. Most types of the antivirus update the system automatically.
Protect the personal information
Because of many online services, individuals share their personal information such as name, phone number, home address, and email address. By using common sense, person can protect and prevent cyber crime. It is advisable that people should not respond to any kind of email messages that include poor grammar, misspellings, website with strange extensions and odd phrases. Individuals should consider telephonic calls rather than responding the emails to the organization so that they can verify the authenticity (Aggarwal, 2015).
If it seems not too good to be true then it is
“No one is going to receive huge amount of money with the huge lottery or no one can make big money in few hours.” Many of the crimes go unreported as the victims do not want to report regarding the fraud and crime. For them, it is embarrassment that they were deceived. On many photo sharing and social networking sites, there is the information about privacy policy that allows the website to keep photos and information posted on the sites. This can be the cause of harmless prank to damage someone’s reputation when there is any opportunity for that person (Whitman, Michael & Mattord, 2005).
By the network security, someone can prevent unauthorized users from assessing the network. Along with this, it is also helpful for the managers to find and fix the security problems in the organization.
References
Aggarwal, G., (2015), General Awareness on Cyber Crime: International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, 5(8)
Agustina, J. R., & Insa, F., (2011), Challenges before crime in a digital era: Outsmarting cybercrime offenders–Workshop on Cybercrime, Computer Crime Prevention and the Surveillance Society: Computer Law & Security Review, 27(2), 211-212
Al-Alawi, A. I., (2014), Cybercrimes. Computer Forensics and their Impact in Business Climate: Bahrain Status: Research Journal of Business Management, 8(3), PP 139-156
Anderson, T. M., & Gardner, T. J., (2015), Criminal Law, (12th), Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning
Broadhurst, R., Grabosky, P., Alazab, M., Bouhours, B., & Chon, S. (2014), An Analysis of the Nature of Groups Engaged in Cyber Crime, An Analysis of the Nature of Groups engaged in Cyber Crime: International Journal of Cyber Criminology, 8(1), 1-20
Cheng, H., & Ma, L., (2009), White collar crime and the criminal justice system: Government response to bank fraud and corruption in China: Journal of Financial Crime, 16(2), 166-179
Das, S., & Nayak, T., (2013), Impact of cyber crime: issues and challenges: International Journal of Engineering Sciences & Emerging Technologies, 6(2), pp: 142-153
Dashora, K., (2011), Cyber Crime in the Society: Problems and Preventions: Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, 3(1), 240-259
Gaur, S., & Jethwani, K., (2015), CyberCrime: Issues and Challenges: International Journal of Emerging Research in Management &Technology, 4(8)
Gercke, M., (2011), Understanding cybercrime: a guide for developing countries: International Telecommunication Union (Draft), 89, p. 93
Hunton, P., (2010), Cyber Crime and Security: A New Model of Law Enforcement Investigation, 4(1), 385–395
Ionescu, L., Mirea, V., & Blajan, A. (2011), Fraud, Corruption and Cyber Crime in a Global Digital Network: Economics, Management and Financial Markets, 6(2), 373-380
Vlek, R. J., Steines, D., Szibbo, D., Kübler, A., Schneider, M. J., Haselager, P., & Nijboer, F. (2012), Ethical issues in Brain–Computer interface research, development, & dissemination: Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy, 36(2), 94-99
Vyas, R., & Dewanjee, R., (2016), Cyber Crime: Critical View, International Journal of Science and Research, 5(1)
Warikoo, A., (2014), Proposed Methodology for Cyber Criminal Profiling: Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective, 23(4-6), 172-178
Whitman, M., & Mattord, H., (2011), Principles of information security, Cengage Learning
Whitman, Michael, E. & Mattord, H., J., (2005), Principles of information security, (2nd), Boston: Thomson Course Technology, Pp. 205-249.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
