Trends in Cybercrime - Report Example

Trends in Cybercrime Technology attracts a lot of attention due to its uncountable benefits and charms. In this modern age where technology has surpassed itself and the arrival of new gadgets in the market, the craze is even more widespread. Every technology producing company tries to place the best gadget in the market and now not only the technology driven companies have to keep themselves updated by the current trends but every company is getting itself registered on the most widely used medium of communication and information the World Wide Web, also better known as the Internet. The internet has now become a complete source of serving every category that wishes to use it. People use it extensively to gather information, shop, collect data, read news, listening to music, watch movies, connect with people millions of miles away, and every other thing you could think of. The internet is no longer used just by individuals but millions of businesses rely solely on it. The leisure to sit at your home or office and do anything you like with just a few clicks, its use began to increase widely and now with the help of modern technology it can be accessed anywhere. With its use on the rise feverishly people began to come up with mischievous ideas. People who try to make fool of their friends hiding their real personality and would have a hearty laugh after completing their fun. But unfortunately this act was not left only to the level of un-harmful mischief, but started to advance to levels where it was no longer un-harmful but began to be used intentionally for harmful purposes and hence came the birth of a new species of crime which is now called cyber crime. Cyber crime is a serious issue that has caused many people to suffer. Until the year 2000 it was not considered as a crime punishable by law until it intensified and companies and individuals also including many government organizations became victims of cyber criminals and lost millions of dollars and data. Until now steps are being implemented to control cyber crimes and awareness is being spread by government to refrain people from becoming cyber criminals intentionally or unintentionally. Cyber crimes are the easiest to commit as this requires no physical skills and you can easily hide your identity without anyone knowing it might be your best friend. During the years cyber crimes kept changing it forms. First there were little viruses sent by emails that would infect a person’s computer and cause them to lose data and when antivirus programs came to their aid people began to develop ways to hack into other peoples and organizations computers to steal or manipulate their data. After playing such small games these cyber criminals became organized and started to think big and they developed ways to actually harm people in far serious ways. “During 2009 using the FBI’s name people were scammed in America losing millions of dollars (IC3, Internet Crime Report, 2009, p 5).” Cyber criminals devised ways to extort money from people posing as law enforcers to their aid. A cyber criminal ‘s profile in most of the crimes are still unknown as people make multiple accounts using fake identities or stealing other people’s accounts or their identities to carry on their unlawful activities. As the internet facilitates by connecting people through many ways where there is no physical interaction between the people involved, a man can easily pose as a woman and create a fake identity without the other person knowing who is actually behind the scene. Cyber criminals usually operate from places where they are not easily traceable and with the development of new software that enable to hide your IP it has become easier. The cyber criminals who were managed to get caught turned out to be mostly people of advanced computer knowledge. Internet scams or cyber crime has now taken many different forms. “A company managed to rob people totaling more than $53,000 by asking them to pay for shipping of their free samples that they never received (IC3, Internet Crime Report, 2010, p 12).” Online fraud is a form of cyber crime that has made people lose billions of dollars all over the world. With increasing joblessness many cyber criminals have lured people to pay up for getting a reputable job in a company which in-fact they had no connection to. The famous “Nigerian scam” and the “Iraqi scam” have made thousands of people to suffer. The con in this scam lured people to help him transfer millions of dollars into their account through a foreign bank as they were trapped in a war stricken country. The glitter of being handed over unimaginable fortune blinded the people and they made payments to these con artists who asked them to pay some amount to prove their trust worthiness and then never contacting again. “This crude cyber crime struck the greedy and the naïve people (IAP, 13th Annual conference, 2008, p 2).” The government of America has taken strict measures to control cyber crimes and many punishments have been put in practice to different categories of cyber crime. Accessing a computer system illegally would be penalized ranging from six months to five years in prison and any unofficial modification done to the contents in the illegally accessed computer would impose another penalty ranging from five to ten years. Telecommunication theft that involves getting access to using unauthorized calls is dealt severely with a heavy fine and some cases even imprisonment. Spreading unverified messages is considered to be a class D crime with punishment ranging from one to five years of imprisonment with a fine. Any person involved in changing the source code of a website or any computer program would receive a sentence of three years of imprisonment. Extorting money is dealt as the same as fraud in real life and the prisoner gets to serve the full term when pleaded guilty. The government of the United States of America formed the internet crime complaint center also known as IC3 which began working officially on 8th May 2008 partnering with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). With the seriousness of crimes growing on the internet, it had become necessary to protect the innocent people. Upon receiving the complaints the IC3 forwards them to the related departments and since its working many scammer have been put behind bars or have been heavily fined for their crime spree. In most of the cases it was observed that people were unaware that their acts had fallen on the grounds of becoming criminals and they were carrying on just for the fun of it. It is agreed that spreading awareness among the people to stay away from any such activities or groups involved in such acts because this is now considered as real crime imposing real punishments. It is agreed that there is no nation in the world that having access to internet would be safe from such criminals. There are many cyber criminals who get arrested and many new who enter this field that seems too easy to earn money. Cyber criminals lurk on the internet in many disguises and as being a criminal out in the real world they have very little chances of exposing their real identity and hence plot new ways and schemes to allure people and make them part with their money making their victims think to have found a solution to their problems. Cyber criminals manage to escape in most of the situations and they manage to find new dens to operate from unknown locations where tracing them would seem almost impossible. No matter how secure a website may be made but it is all a man’s creation with many possible loopholes and loose ends remaining to be exploited which are sought out by these cyber criminals and find their way into their systems to create chaos and disrupt the owners’ whole network. Even with the copyright act imposed to keep cyber criminals away from causing any harm to the website and layman users. These cyber criminals create fake identities with untraceable IP addresses to create their way into the system. The war between law enforcers and cyber criminals seems to have no end as these criminals have many places to operate from but laws are being implemented to stop them and soon a time would come when cyber criminals would have less places to hide and the internet may be considered a secure place to surf. References National White Collar Crime Center (U.S.), & United States. (2009). IC3 ... Internet crime report. Washington, D.C.: National White Collar Crime Center. National White Collar Crime Center (U.S.), & United States. (2010). IC3 ... Internet crime report. Washington, D.C.: National White Collar Crime Center. Cowdery, N., International Association of Prosecutors, Public Prosecutions. (2008). New technologies in crime and prosecution: Challenges and opportunities (13th Annual Conference). Retrieved from http://www.odpp.nsw.gov.au/speeches/IAP%20-%2013th%20Annual%20Conference%20-%20New%20Technologies.pdf Kumar, R. (2010, Apr 06). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://fillsout.blogspot.com/2010/04/cyber-crime-and-its-punishment.html Department of Justice. Department of Justice, Criminal Division. (2010). Hungarian citizen sentenced in Maryland to 30 months in prison for hacking into Marriott computers to extort employment from the company. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/February/12-crm-163.html Read More