The Effects Of Computer Crimes

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Abstract: Computer crimes may have some inducement behind it or may be processed unknowingly. The attacks those are processed knowingly can be considered as the computer crime and they have serious effects over the society in the form of economical disrupt, psychological disorder, threat to National defense etc. Restriction of computer crimes is dependent on proper analysis of their behavior and understanding of their impacts over various levels of society.

1. Introduction

Computer crimes are the activities that contain breaking the law. In other words computer crimes are the illegal activities or activities that can be penalized by law. Therefore those crimes may effects badly to all the areas of society. These crimes were devoted for many reasons, some are rational, others of may make no sense to the observer. Computer crimes will likely become more frequent with the arrival of further technologies. It is important that civilians, law enforcement officials, and other members of the criminal justice system are knowledgeable about computer crimes in order to reduce the threat they pose. In this review paper put its eye not only on the understanding of the computer crimes but also explains the impacts over the different levels of the society. This will help to the community to secure all the online information critical organizations which are not safe due to such computer crimes. The understanding of the behavior of cyber criminals and impacts of computer crimes on society will help to find out the sufficient means to overcome the situation.

2. Overview

This section provides an introductory background for the effects of computer crimes to the world.

2.1 Introduction

In the current world the most concern research area is effects of the computer crimes to the world. Computer crimes are mostly effects to the lot of areas of the society. When we work with computers we should know about the computer crimes, how those are happen, and how we save from them. In developed and developing countries normally use new technologies to do their day to day transactions. Both private and government sector often use internet, computers, and other technologies. Therefore not only the student but also all employees should have the good knowledge about computer crimes to save their work properly and without any doubt. [1] Current era is too fast to utilize the time factor to improve the performance factor. It is only possible due the use of Internet. The term Internet can be defined as the collection of millions of computers that provide a network of electronic connections between the computers. There are millions of computers connected to the internet. Everyone appreciates the use of Internet but there is another side of the coin that is computer crime by the use of Internet.

2.2 Types of computer crimes

Crackers: These individuals are intent on causing loss to satisfy some antisocial motives or just for fun. Many computer virus creators and distributors fall into this category.

Hackers: These individuals explore others' computer systems for education, out of curiosity, or to compete with their peers. They may be attempting to gain the use of a more powerful computer, gain respect from fellow hackers, build a reputation, or gain acceptance as an expert without formal education.

Pranksters: These individuals perpetrate tricks on others. They generally do not intend any particular or long-lasting harm. [1]

[2]Spam: Sending many mails to people in order to conduct commercial benefits.

Fraud: A dishonest way to make someone to do a loss which could make a profit for you in any case e.g. make a false webpage of a bank to retrieve information of account of someone.

Offensive contents: Websites such as blogs publishing political, social or religious information which could be suitable for one sect or creed but is harmful for the other. Such is the case of facebook.

Harassment: Mail individual or a particular group and make offence on the base of age, sex, cast, religion etc. These types of things are also done in chat rooms.

Malware and virus: Creating tools to harm the computer of others.[2]

3. Major researches of effects of the computer crimes

In the current world people are mostly use internet and computer technology to do lot of things. Sometimes they may face their data security problem. People may lot care about their private data secure and protection. Because increasing the data hackers in present days. Those crimes are effects to the different area of the society. Such as bank, software companies, courts, shops etc. [3] the financial losses accruing from cybercrime fraud is doubling every year. Yet less than half of the cybercrime instances are reported to the authorities. This means that the situation is worse than it seems to be. Generally, crime negatively affects the economy of a country and this holds true with computer crime too. Computer crime negatively affects the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), GNP(Gross National Product), income levels, inflation levels and the economic structure of the economy. This is majorly caused by loss of revenue, wasted time and reduced productivity.[3].

3.1 Impacts of computer crimes

Computer crimes are badly affected to all area of the society and the world. Therefore to prevent from those threats we should know about those crimes and how those are happens, how overcome those crimes. When we consider about the different countries they fall from computer crimes certainly.

[4]Computer crime is becoming a big problem in our world today. Many of these crimes affect our jobs, our money, our community and our lives. Many people are being affected by fraud over the internet. There is a chance they can get their credit card number stolen or even their social security number, which could lead to the loss of their identity. It is not only just viruses messing up how we use the internet. People are stealing money, software, benefits, and much more. Many governmental agencies, such as Police Departments and Fire Departments, have important databases that are crucial for protection.

3.1.1 Computer Crime as a Major Problem to Businesses:

One of the major victims of the increasing wave of computer crime is businesses. Computer crime can have devastating effects on businesses. Businesses are using information technology for all aspects of business. They use it for many of their day to day activities. This increase in the use of information technology has raised the risk of having complete devastation due to a computer crime. These computer crimes can inhibit a business from performing its day to day activities. Thus, causing the business it infects to lost a substantial amount of money in a short time.[4]

3.1.2 Potential Economic Impact in United States

[1] The 2011 Norton computer crime disclosed that over 74 million people in the United States were victims of computer crime in 2010. These criminal acts resulted in $32 billion in direct financial losses. Further analysis of this growing problem found that 69 percent of adults that are online have been victims of computer crime resulting in 1 million computer crime victims a day. Many people have the attitude that computer crime is a fact of doing business online.

3.1.3 Impact on Consumer trust in United States

Since cyber-attackers intrude into others‘ space and try and break the logic of the page, the end customer visiting the concerned page will be frustrated and discouraged to use the said site on a long term basis. The site in question is termed as the fraudulent, while the criminal masterminding the hidden attack is not recognized as the root cause. This makes the customer lose confidence in the said site and in the internet and its strengths. [1]

3.1.4 Computer crime in Nigeria

[5] Majority of the computer crimes perpetrated in Nigeria generally are targeted at individuals and not necessarily computer systems, hence they require less technical expertise. The damage done manifests itself in the real world. Human weaknesses such as greed and gullibility are generally exploited. The damage dealt is largely psychological and financial. These crimes are similar to theft, and the likes that have existed for century’s offline even before the development of high-tech equipment. Through the Internet, the same criminals or persons with criminal intents have simply been given a tool which increases their potential pool of victims and makes them all the harder to trace and apprehend.

3.2. Increases of computer crimes

Computer crimes are the fastest growing crimes in the industry today. Those crimes impact the economy of a country. Lot of researchers found how those crimes are increases day by day. If this will happen continuously all countries may face big problem.

[6] The most recent report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center's (IC3) shows that computer crime is on the increase. The general trend since 2000 is illustrated in Figure 1 Please note that between 2008 and 2009, there has been a 22.3% increase in the number of complaints being recorded.

Figure 1: Complaints received

The financial losses caused by computer crimes are skyrocketing. Figure 2 illustrates the yearly dollar loss since 2001 to 2009. Between 2008 and 2009, financial losses caused by computer crime doubled.[6]

Figure 2: Yearly Dollar loss

4. Future direction of computer crimes

A key issue facing today’s society is the increase in computer crimes. Computer crimes pose threats to nations, organizations and individuals across the globe. Every advance in technology appears to create a new crime alongside it. Although it is clear that the instances of reported crime are increase day by day.

[7]Knowledge about offender and victim behavior, as it applies in the online environment, needs to be enhanced. Some of the information gaps are being addressed but further development, based on a clear and functional classification of computer crimes, is essential. To guide training and research, a number of cross-disciplinary applied and theoretical approaches will need to be tested. Along with these essential processes must be a greater willingness to test and re-test software and hardware defenses as well as the best forms of general and specific forms of public–private partnerships in preventing technology-enabled crime.[7]

Defending against cyber-crime

[8]There are two main methods that can be used to manage the growth of cyber-crime. The first is to ensure that the law is sufficiently strong to act as a deterrent to potential criminals. However, the law cannot prevent crimes taking place; it can only deal with what has already happened. The second is to ensure that network security and general security awareness are as effective as possible.

How can this be achieved?

• Strong authentication techniques:

Using public key cryptography, reliable biometric authentication, smart cards and other secure identity tokens can prevent unauthorized access to personal data and provide assurance of identity.

• Forensic readiness:

Monitoring network facilities to maintain awareness of potential misuse, maintaining rigorous access control procedures, keeping audit logs and responding to incidents in an appropriate manner. Forensic readiness ensures that any attacks that do take place are dealt with quickly and in the most appropriate manner.

• Network security:

Correctly configured firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), privacy policies and regularly patched systems will all play a part in making a criminal’s life more difficult. If information is not available to steal, then cyber-crime will be reduced.[8]

5. Discussion

In this research paper I have discussed what is computer crime, how it evolved. Not only that but I discussed about various types of computer crimes also. Mainly I focused about the effects of the computer crimes to the world. For that I described different sides of world and society which are effects from the computer crimes. This type of bad things is very danger for the future also. Therefore I mentioned in this research paper future direction of the computer crimes and the effects.

6. My contribution

By doing this research I was able to gather a bunch of knowledge related to the field of effects of computer crimes to the world. Actually I identified the important of that kind of research area to modern days. Because when we consider about the rapidly changes of the technologies it is latest and interested area to the modern people. But they do not know about the things that are happen in badly to the world and society because of the computer crimes. Therefore this kind of research area is very important to all people.