Abstract
Computer crimes have become unpredictable occurrence of our computerized community. This phenomenon has caused both gain and loss to the individuals and companies at large. This article analyses the occurrence of these computer crimes, the classification of computer crimes, types of possible computer crimes and the potential ways to govern computer crimes.
Computer Crimes
Computer crime can be defined as the offenses that are performed against individuals or groups of people with the negative motive to intentionally harm the victim mentally or by damaging his/her system. Computer crime involves the use of computers and the network, the computer may be used in the commission of the crime or it can be the target from the attacker. Computer crimes are threats to individual security, financial state and health state and can go beyond an individual to the nation as the target. Issues surroundings computer crimes have become major threats, particularly those regarding sextortion, child grooming, copyright infringement, hacking and unwarranted mass-surveillance (Hill, 2016).
Classification of computer crimes
Computer crimes are classified in many groups in includes the following:
Cyber extortion 1. This is where the malicious attacker causes the denial of service repeatedly that is subjected to a website, computer system or an e-mail server. These attackers/hackers pretend to be caring, hence they demand money to be paid to them and in return they promise to stop the attacks and offer total protection to the victim. Another technique that is used in cyber extortion is bug poaching whereby the attacker sends a bug to a victim, the attacker then contacts the victim and promise to solve the bug when payment is made to do so.
Drug trafficking 3. Recreational drugs are sold and bought online in the darknet markets. Encryption massaging tools used in communication are used by some drug traffickers. The first site for this kind of business was the dark web which was a major marketplace for online drugs but later was shut down by law enforcement.
Computer as a target 4. Computers are targeted by an individual or a selected group of attackers/criminals. These types of crimes require the technical knowledge of the attackers of the functionality of the system. The attackers exploit the computer mostly through the network. The crimes primarily include; computer viruses, malware and also denial-of-service attacks.
Financial fraud crime 5. This is any dishonest activity that is intended to let someone to do or refrain from doing something that causes loss. The fraud in this content is as a result of obtaining a benefit by deleting, destroying suppressing, stealing output to cover unauthorized transactions or altering in an unauthorized way the stored data (Singh, 2018).
Cyberwarfare 6. This is an attack where the hackers in cyberspace take their attacks to a national-level and put all their efforts to exploit nation-state resources in the world.
Cyber terrorism 7. This is an attack that involves the cyber-terrorist to intimidate an organization or government to advance his/her social or political objectives by launching attacks against the information stored in a computer system, networks or computer itself.
The major threats that encountered in the computer crimes include; backdoors, payloads, vulnerabilities, malware, worms, rootkits, logic bombs, web shells, spyware, Trojans, ransomware, keyloggers, phishing, viruses, eavesdropping and web application security.
Computer crimes combating
Legislation 1. These are laws that are put in place to control computer crimes in every country. Mostly in developing countries the laws against computer crime are weak or sometimes they do not exist at all. In countries where these laws are weak, attackers strike from other countries’ borders and remain undetected throughout (Singh, 2018).
Awareness 2. This is a situation where an organization or government takes a step to educate internet users about the crimes that arise as they use advance technology. The internet users are educated on how to keep their sensitive information such as identities, banking, and credit card information secure, whereby if an attacker can get the access to this information the owner would suffer loss, for example, the banking information can lead the victim to lose his/her money to the attacker.
Investigation 3. In the case of computer crime a computer can be a source of evidence which is mostly performed through digital forensics (Hill, 2016). These activities are spearheaded by the internet service providers who are required to keep all their logfiles for a specified period. The investigation starts with the IP Address to trace the computer system that was involved in crime.
Prevention 4.This involves the use of personnel and systems to prevent any computer crimes. Pen testers are hired to test the systems before the attackers can find the weakness whereas intrusion detection systems are used to alert any intrusion (Trujillo, 2019).
Defenses in computer crimes include the following; Mobile secure gateway, computer access control, intrusion detection system, authentication through multi-factor authentication, firewall, data-centric security and runtime application self-protection.
References
Hill, J. B., & Marion, N. E. (2016). Introduction to Cybercrime: Computer Crimes, Laws, and Policing in the 21st Century: Computer Crimes, Laws, and Policing in the 21st Century. ABC-CLIO.
Mohamed, S. H. (2017). A legal study on the Computer Crimes Act 1997 in combating computer crimes in Malaysia (Doctoral dissertation, Universiti Teknologi MARA).
Sethi, N. (2016). A Review on Recent Computer Crimes. International Journal of Computer Science & Engineering Technology, 7(6), 244-246.
Singh, S. C. (2018). High-tech and computer crimes: global challenges, global responses. In Contemporary Issues in International Law (pp. 413-437). Springer, Singapore.
Trujillo, M. (2019). Computer Crimes. Am. Crim. L. Rev., 56, 615.
