Cyber Crime
| Author | Jensen Zhao |
| Pages | 187-188 |
Page 187
Cyber crime refers to criminal conduct occurring in cyberspace—computerized, networked environments such as those in an office or on the Internet and the World Wide Web. According to U.S. law, cyber crimes have been committed if someone intentionally accesses a network facility without authorization or intentionally exceeds his or her given level of authorization to access that facility. If the crime is committed for commercial advantage, malicious destruction, private commercial gain, or in furtherance of any criminal act, the punishment is a fine and/or imprisonment for up to five years for a first offense. For any subsequent offense, the punishment is a fine and/or imprisonment for up to ten years.
Cyber crimes fall into three categories: (1) when computers or computer systems are the targets of crimes, such as hacking, denial of service, and viruses and Trojan horses; (2) when computers are the medium by which criminal activity is committed, such as phishing, sniffing, spamming, and spoofing; and (3) when computers are abused by rogue employees to illegally access organizational networks and steal valuable information. The following is a discussion of these cyber crimes.
Hacking: Breaking into a computer network or Web site such as a bank's intranet by using a software program that can generate multiple login usernames and passwords until a valid combination is found and access is granted. Once in the system, the hacker is able to steal, alter, or delete any files within the system.
Denial of service: By using a computer to flood a given Web site with so much useless traffic (e-mail, interactions, etc.) the site becomes frozen and stops the regular service thus losing business for a period.
Viruses, worms, and Trojan horses: Small, malicious software programs that are sent as attachments to emails with the intent of paralyzing the receiving computer(s). Once an e-mail recipient opens such an attachment, the virus, worm, or Trojan horse is released, disabling computers and replicating itself by contaminating the whole e-mail system.
Phishing: Cyber criminals send legitimate looking emails to customers of banks and credit card...
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