Criminology: Cyber Crime - Research Paper Example

Criminology: Cyber Crime Introduction The invention and introduction of computer technology presented great advantages that made it receive warm welcome and appreciation from all corners of the world. Computer technologies have actually led to simplification of lifestyles considering its quick manner of solving problems and tasks. Computers have been the basis of operations in various institutions ranging from corporate to government organizations. Computers have been very instrumental in communication, transactions, storage of files and data, as well detecting certain malicious activities. Increasing technological knowhow about computer and its systems have witnessed simultaneous increase in criminal activities carried through computers. Cyber crime has been the rightful term to define and explain the nature of the criminal activities performed by use of computers. Douglas et al define cyber crime as computer mediated activities which are either illegal or considered illicit by certain parties and which can be conducted through the global electronic network (3). Committing cyber crime requires the use of computer devices and with the help of network connectivity, which transmits the intended malicious deed to the other remote computer system. Simple computer crimes are possible through corruption of one’s computer system without necessarily involving the use of network connectivity. Internet or network connection becomes of great use when committing crime from a remote location (Pati). In fact, increasing innovation of network resources is one factor regarded to contribute to the complex nature of the cyber crime in the contemporary world. Cyber crime takes different and various forms, and continues to change with advancement and advent in new technologies. Continued development and integration of computer technology alongside changing techniques of cyber crime have proved difficult for cyber crime detectives and investigators to stop cyber crimes. Forms of Cyber crime As mentioned earlier, cyber crimes assume various forms and means that are all destructive to individual information system. The commonly known forms of cyber crime include and not limited to hacking, software piracy, child pornography, cyber stalking, and virus dissemination, fraud of credit cards, phishing, net exhortation and service denial attack. Software piracy involves illegal copying of original software programs from the internet and preparing it for redistribution as your own. Individual criminals engage and perfects software piracy without the knowledge and assent of the particular copyright holder. Virus dissemination form of cyber crime involves use of integrated software to attach and set malicious files and programs like the Trojan horse, rabbit, and time bomb among others to another person’s computer system. The viruses usually corrupt and crash the victim computer thereby leading to loss of critical data and files stored in the particular computer system. Denial of service constitutes malicious actions by the individual cyber criminal of flooding the network bandwidth of an individual victim and deprives the latter access to important details and materials in the network. Service denial attack may also involve filling the email of an individual victim with spam mail and thus inhibiting the victim from accessing the crucial services and information he/she is entitled. The most commonly known types of software used in service denial attack include the teardrop attacks and the ping of death, which exploit and paralyze the TCP/IP of the victim computer system. Another form of cyber crime is cyber stalking. Cyber stalking involves the use of internet, electronic communication devices and email to harass, threaten and make repeated insults to the individual victim. In the observation of Kumar, acts of stalking may involve threatening phone call, electronic messages, that in most cases prior physical harm on the individual victim (2). For cyber stalking to be effective, individual criminal needs to be in possession of the victim’s personal information. The basic personal information required about the individual victim include name, telephone number, email address, background, date of birth, place of work and probably residential area. Stalkers can easily obtain these information through personal or friendship contact to the individual victim. Yar warns that strange stalkers will also obtain the information via internet resources like the profiles used in opening email or chat accounts (19). After obtaining the personal information of the victim, cyber criminal may post the details in the sexual websites and dating internet resources while impersonating the actual victim. Stalkers will even display very dirty messages and images perceived to attract attention of the consumers of the internet sexual sites. In most cases, the stalkers leave phone calls, addresses and location of the victim for any interested internet users. Cyber criminals performing cyber stalking can also subscribe the email address of the victims to malicious materials like pornographies and other dirty internet resources (Kumar 3). Some stalkers can also use the phone contacts and email addresses of the individual victims to make threatening and intimidating calls and messages to the subjects. Stalkers can also use the personal information of the individual victim to access and breach privacy rights of the victims. Cyber stalking can play a significant tool for tracking victim and even disclosing their nudities from a remote region. In the description of Kunz and Wilson, child pornography constitutes another serious aspect of cyber crime (10). With increasing easy access to and use of computer devices that connect to the internet have exposed children to serious risk of watching pornographic materials as well participating in the production of the materials. This disaster has been possible and easy through the pedophiles. Kunz and Wilson exemplify that pedophiles are internet resources that can manipulate and present internet materials to disclose false identity that can easily trap the attention of children and teenagers (11). The pedophiles develop online friendship with children, and start sending and displaying to the children the sexual images and videos. After significant period of time when the individual victim gain substantial confidence, the pedophile makes invitation to the individual victim. Upon making physical response and presentation to the invitation stage, individual child victim gets money offers to participate and take part in the production of pornographic images and videos. These productions later get posted and displayed on the global internet. Hacking is another well-known form of cyber crime. Hacking, otherwise known as cracking involves intrusion into individual’s network and computer system to obtain critical information about the victim. Kumar describes that hackers create complex and deceptive programs that they send to the victim computer system, which in turn dispels crucial and protected information it holds (2). Hacking activities usually target credit cards and banks that have potential of producing financial gains. Hackers have special techniques of retrieving codes of individuals’ credit cards with which they can withdraw money from the victim’s accounts. Hackers can also attack transaction systems in the banks and divert transacted monies into their individual accounts instead of the intended accounts. Brenner adds that hackers can also attack information databases of individuals where they obtain victims’ details with which they use to forge banknotes and smart cards used in purchasing items (7). According to Walker, other forms of cyber crime include cyber bullying, cyber terrorism and drug trafficking. Cyber bullying is common practice among the youths and teenagers and mainly involves harassments and frustrations deployed through the internet. Internet coupled with advanced computer technologies have been instrumental tools and avenues for drug traffickers to transact businesses as well as passing information. Walker confirms that drug traffickers prefer communicating through the internet considering the possibility of encrypting emails and sending protected messages that not are easily accessible to crime detectives. Cyber terrorism on the other hand has been a common attack on government websites and internet resources. Individual criminals can flood governments’ websites with spam emails that make it uneasily for government officials access crucial documents required for the running of government activities (Walker). Prevention of Cyber crime Being aware and sensitive of cyber crimes, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) highlights various ways of avoiding being a victim of financial cyber crimes. FBI proposes that for one to avoid becoming a victim of fraudulent internet auction, he/she should understand the functionality of the auction, his personal obligation as well as that of the seller. An individual should also examine the modalities of compensation or coverage indicated in case of occurrence of any accident or problem. Individuals should also examine the response of the seller. An individual should also use only credit cards in making online orders as this can help one to dispute charges upon occurrence of unethical practice in the transaction (FBI). The buyer should not agree to disclose or share his/her social security and driving license details to seller. In addition, an individual should ensure that there are no hidden costs in the delivery of the product and all costs should be included in the auction price. To avoid becoming a victim of credit card fraud, FBI directs that individuals should not be quick in giving out their card numbers to trading sites in the internet. Individuals should ensure purchasing and giving their credit numbers only to trustable and reputable business sites recognized by the government. Before transacting any business, individuals should check and examine encryption software used by the merchandising site (FBI). Individuals can also check with the Better Business Bureau about the authenticity of the sites with which they want to transact business. For further assurance about the authenticity of sites, individuals should consider sending emails to the trading sites and ensure that they get reply from the trader. Generally, as regards cyber frauds involving business transactions, FBI advice individuals to be sure to transact business with highly reputable organizations or with actual holders of the product’s trademark. As a way of avoiding child pornography Kumar directs that children should not give out personal information while in chat room without consulting their parents or elders (3). In addition, children avoid responding to threatening messages or emails from unknown senders. Physical meeting with strangers met on the internet should form strict warning given to children who use internet resources (Kumar 3). It is also the responsibilities of parents to protect their children from untidy sites. In achieving this, parents can install software that performs content filtering on their home PCs in order to protect their children from bumping into pornographic pedophiles, fraudulent businesses and hate speech. Kumar further advices that individual internet users retain malicious emails and images they receive, as this will avail internet address used to send the information for investigation and prosecution of the suspected criminal (3). Kumar further assures that organizations and governments can also escape detrimental effects of cyber crimes by installing access control software like the firewalls that only allow authorized communication (4). Passwords also form part of the entire preventive mechanism. Passwords act as confirmatory system of identities of internet and computer users. Effective passwords should be complex and if possible be in alphanumeric form and difficult to guess. Network scanning programs also provides reliable protective mechanism against cyber crimes. Tools such as UNIX perform better when it comes to scanning the network. The tools check vulnerabilities, security weaknesses, permission of dangerous files and inappropriate passwords (Kumar 4). Organizations also need to install programs that alert computer users upon suspicion of any unauthorized activities that take place in the system. The program should run without stop in order to alarm the victim user to take the necessary actions to stop the malicious activity. Encryption is another technique that can help in averting cyber related crimes. Encryption allows individual transform information to a complex form that is difficult to access and read if one does not have the rightful key. Cyber Crime Laws While understanding the seriousness and possible effects of cyber crimes on individuals and organizations, various countries across the world have instituted laws to convict suspected cyber criminals. In the specter of international war on cybercrime are the International Cybercrime Reporting and Corporation Act instituted by the US government (Hall). The Act permits US Federal government to pose economic sanctions on countries whose citizens engage in international cyber crime and go unpunished by the government. In the presentation of Hall, the laws also allow the US government to shame any foreign government that tolerates internet criminal activities among its citizens. The US Patriot Act 2001 also provides comprehensive framework for handling cyber crime cases (Kunz and Wilson 21). Section 217of the Act permits victims of cyber crime to request the crime detectives investigate and monitor computer system of the criminal. Section 220 of the USA PATRIOT Act 2001 authorizes the law enforcers to request and gather national warrants granted with email addresses. Furthermore, Section 816 of the Acts recommends for the establishment of forensic laboratories for training and investigating computer related criminal activities (Kunz and Wilson 22). According to Wong, Malaysian government has expressed high level of serious on the issues involving cyber crime. This follows the adoption of the Computer Crimes Act 1997 by the Malaysian government. The Act seeks among other things to criminalize any person who activates computer to function in a manner that it access unauthorized materials from any other computer. The Act also seeks to make it illegal for any practice involving unauthorized modification of materials and contents of another computer. In addition, the Act seeks to criminalize practices involving wrong communication and use of numbers, codes and passwords to access another computer (Wong). Furthermore, the Act seeks to criminalize and punish any individual holding program, information or data that he/she is not authorized to, unless the case is proven otherwise. India constitute among the countries that have established cyber crime laws that conform to the United Nations standards. Kumar indicates that IT Act 2000 is the Indian cyber crime law that defines the scopes of cyber crime and the modalities of prosecuting cyber criminals (6). Section 65 of the Act criminalizes any form of tampering with documents in a remote compute. Section 66 of Act illicit computer based form of hacking and alteration of data in another computer. Spreading of dirty information is an offense defined under Section 67 of the IT Act 2000. Section 70 of the Act rebukes any attempt to access unauthorized and protected computer system. Privacy and confidentiality enjoy protection of Section 72 of the Indian IT Act 2000. Deputy Superintendent of Police enjoys permission of Section 78 of the IT Act 2000 to conduct independent investigation on any purported cyber crime (Kumar 6). Conclusion As much as rapidly advancing computer technology assist in simplifying life activities and integrating lifestyles, it has led to development of equal dangers and risks that were absent before the advent of computers. Cyber crime is the best term to describe dangers and risks associated with computers and computer systems. Cyber crimes have led loss and destruction of vital information and data used for running particular organizations. Cyber frauds have led to disclosure of critical financial information and consequential loss of huge amounts of money. Cyber stalking, denials of service and pedophiles have led to rapid rise of immorality conducted through the internet and computer systems. To keep safe from consequences of cyber crimes, various preventive measures need observation. Among the measures is the sensitization of children and teenagers against sharing personal details with unknown internet users. Warning children against engaging in physical meetings organized through the internet is another strategic preventive measure. Parents also need to install filtering software in the home computers. Organization and governments also need to install protective and alerting software in their computer systems. It is also imperative to note that there are various laws all over the world instituted to help define scopes of cyber crime as well as prosecutorial modalities. Works Cited Brenner, Susan. Cybercrime: criminal threats from cyberspace. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLO Publisher, 2010. Print. Douglas, Tom. Cybercrime: Law Enforcement, Security and Surveillance in the Information Age. 2nd Ed. New York: Routledge Publisher, 2003. Print. FBI. Internet fraud. Web. < http://www.fbi.gov/scams-safety/fraud/internet_fraud>. Hall, Matthew. US eyes global cyber cop role. 2012. Web. < http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/security-it/us-eyes-global-cyber-cop-role-20120209-1rmuk.html>. Kumar, Shiva. Cyber crime – prevention & detection. Web. < http://www.cidap.gov.in/documents/Cyber%20Crime.pdf>. Kunz, Michael and Wilson Patrick. Computer crime & computer fraud. 2004. Web. < http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/cjcc/pdf/computer_crime_study.pdf>. Pati, Parthasarathi. Cyber crime. Web. < http://www.naavi.org/pati/pati_cybercrimes_dec03.htm>. Walker, James. Different types of cyber crime. 2012. Web. < http://www.ehow.com/facts_4970264_different-types-cyber-crime.html>. Wall, David. Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the Information Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2007. Print. Wong, Chong. Malaysian law and computer crime. 2002. Web. < http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepapers/legal/malaysian-law-computer-crime_670>. Yar, Majid. Cybercrime and society. London [u.a.: SAGE Publ, 2006. Print. Read More