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Cyber crime can broadly be defined as criminal activity that involve an information technology infrastructure, that include illegal access (unauthorized access), illegal interception (it could be by technical mean of non-public transmission of computer data to, from or within a computer system), data interference (unauthorized damaging, deletion, deterioration, alteration or suppression of computer data), systems interference (interfering with the functioning of a computer system by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering or suppressing computer data), misuse of devices, forgery (ID theft), and electronic fraud.[1]

Cyber crime is taking more and more importance, also, some of these issues are fought by different countries are working together as child pornography, child grooming or hacking.

Some of cyber crime issues are getting more important now than before as copyright problem and infringement through warez because the population have an easier access to Internet and the simplistic procedure to commit theses crimes attract people.

Generally

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Computer crime or Cyber crime contains different types of illegal activities. It is possible to divide computer crime in two different categories, the first one contain crimes that target computer networks or devices directly; the second categories is illegal activates that use computers and networks to target the person that use these devices. The first category of crime contains the following illegal activities:

The second category of crime contains the following illegal activities:

A common example is when an individual use computer or computer network to steal information, or cause damage from another computer or computer network. This type of crime could be completely done virtually, that existence of the information is only digital and the damage against this information, is real, but, has no physical impact on the system. Moreover, criminals can use the technologies to hide them self so the victim will have no possibility to find the attacker.

Because we are human-centric terminology, we use natural language skills and innate gullibility to define crimes. The introduction of cyber criminality in the everyday life should bring an evolution of the definition of crime and laws should evolve to protect cyber-users.[2]

A computer or a computer network could be used as a source of evidence, even if the device was not used to perpetrate criminal acts. Computers are really useful to record information and encrypted it; specialist can have the power to find this information by decrypted and using it against the criminal.

Specific computer crimes

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Spam

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Spam called also junk-email, are unsolicited e-mail are send in bulk [3][4] and in general contains commercial purposes.[5] This type of email is unlawful to varying degrees, different laws where created to protect users from spam. Botnet, network of computer infected by a malicious program, are used to send spam; sometimes, they contain malicious program with the purpose to infect the machine with a botnet software that will extend the botnet of the attackers.[6][7]

Fraud

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A computer fraud is “a fraud committed with the aid of, or directly involving, a data processing system or network.”;[8] by definition, a fraud is an intentional misrepresentation of fact made by one to another with knowledge its action that will induce loss to the other person.[9] Losses are defined in computer-fraud related problem by the article 8 of the Convention on Cybercrime:[10]

  • “Any input, alteration, deletion or suppression of computer data,
  • Any interference with the functioning of a computer system, with fraudulent or dishonest intent of procuring, without right, an economic benefit for oneself or for another person. “

Computer system might permit to facilitate other forms of fraud as bank fraud, identity theft, extortion and theft of classified information.[11]

Obscene or offensive content

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The content of websites and other electronic communication might contain obscene or offensive content for the viewer; this communication can also be illegal. The definition of obscene and offensive content depend of the country and the majority of them place limits on certain type of speech and could ban racist, blasphemous, politically subversive, libellous or slanderous, seditious, or inflammatory material that tends to incite hate crimes. One of the most offensive content that nearly every country is following is about the child pornography. The Article 9 of the Convention on Cybercrime [10] define child pornography by

  • “Producing child pornography for the purpose of its distribution through a computer system;
  • Offering or making available child pornography through a computer system;
  • Distributing or transmitting child pornography through a computer system;
  • Procuring child pornography through a computer system for oneself or for another person;
  • Possessing child pornography in a computer system or on a computer-data storage medium.”

For the other content, each country have is one way to define what is an obscene or offensive content.

Harassment

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Harassment done by using computer over the internet is also called cyber-stalking, the definition of cyber-stalking is not universally accepted, however it is possible to define it by the use of Internet, e-mail and other electronic communication device to stalk another person. In general, stalking involve harassing and threatening behaviour that an individual engage against another individual repeatedly. This could be for example following a person, making harassing phone calls, leaving message or object or even stalking the family of the victim.[12] The majority of cyber stalkers are men and their victims are women, but, some cases show that women could also use cyber-stalking against men. It is also possible to found cases where the stalker and the victim have the same sex.[12] Law enforcement agencies of United States estimate that cyber-stalking represent between 20 and 40 percent of all stalking cases.[13] New technologies permit cyber-stalker harassed their victim more easily and efficiently. They can used software that will help them to send repeated, threatening messages. Internet permit stalker to use other Internet users by duping them. The stalker could for example give the name and contact information of the victim on a bulletin board or in a chat room with a message or invitation. Duped Internet users may use this information to contact the victim and harassed him or her without knowing it. This is a good technique for the stalker because it will not ask him a lot of time.[12] Using Internet could help the stalker to be anonymous; the offender can use different ISPs, doing his harassment by accessing Internet with public computer or changing of screen name in a chat room. The stalker can use also this technique to take the identity of someone else as someone trusted by the victim. Cases of stalking show also that more experienced stalkers could use anonymous remailers; the aim of this technique is to make the discovery of the identity of the offender impossible. Finally, the lack of direct contact between the stalker and the victim, the possibility for the stalker to hide himself in the Internet, law enforcement may have difficulties to identify, locate and arrest the offender. Additionally, because of the lack of direct contact between the cyber-stalker and the victim, law enforcement may have difficulty identifying, locating, and arresting the offender.

Drug trafficking

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Internet is also used by drug trafficker, two sort of drug traffic exist on Internet; the first is the traffic of illegal substance, the drug trafficker will for example display an advertisement on a web site that a potential customer will recognize. The customer and the drug dealer will communicate to each other generally with text messages; in most cases the customer and the drug dealer will never see or speak to each other.[14] The second is the traffic of legal substance but normally only accessible if the customer possesses a prescription for it. It is possible to find now on Internet online companies that will offer the possibility to customer to buy different drugs without possessing any authorisation for it. Between November 1999 and January 2000 the Thai authorities closed two Internet pharmacies, the first in Bangkok the second in Chiang Mai, Thailand. These two Web sites were selling drugs to US citizens.[15] The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) in their national report of 2008 said that the traffic of drug by illegal operation by Internet site continues unabated; the Board found indication that drug trafficker use mail to send their illegal product.[16] Governments are asked to develop adequate attention to the detection and investigation of illegal traffic by implementing law that will block this kind of transaction the INCB said.[16] To help Governments, the International Narcotics Control Board wrote with the help of different international organization as UNODC, UPU, INTERPOL and World Customs Organization a package of guideline called “The Guidelines for Governments on Preventing the Illegal Sale of Internationally Controlled Substances through the Internet” [17]

Cyberterrorism

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Denning define the cyberterrorism as the reunion of terrorism and the cyberspace. This type of terrorism has for aim to use threats of attack against computers, networks or the data contained by computer and networks; this should result by giving the capacity of the terrorist to intimidate a government or its people. The definition of terrorism implies the utilisation of violence against person or property that will generate enough arm and fear. “Attacks that lead to death or bodily injury, explosions, plane crashes, water contamination, or severe economic loss would be examples.”,[18] even if the attacks have for result to hurt people this is a strategically attack and not physically attack. This definition imply that only important attack could be define as cyberterrorims, if the attack disrupt nonessential services as a company web site, this will not be cyberterrorism, but, if the attack is against an important resources, this will be cyberterrorism.[19] Many nations depend of computer and networks accessible from outside as electric power, telephone service, and bank system and even military command and control. The risk is important if a nation is victim of a coordinated cyber attack against all of his important resources.[20] Terrorist could target infrastructure but also information, if the information arrive in wrong hands it could be disastrous for the people but also for a government. Information warfare will become in the future the fundamental form of combat,[21] because of the fact that government are more and more technologies-dependent. Internet introduces new challenges for all organisations to prevent cyberterrorims, thanks to this technology the attacker could be at thousands of kilometres of the target. The attacker could also use different techniques to protect himself and hide himself in the Internet. For example the attacker could use techniques as spoofing or using a computer that the attacker have already force his access in. Another challenge is the speed of communication, large amount of data can cross the world in matter of minutes and because of the number of people using Internet it is really hard to filter everything and to discover terrorisms act over the Internet.

Documented cases

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  • A China company DNS (Domain Name Server) server was attacked at 8:10 AM PDT on Thursday, 21 May, 2009. The results of this attack affect five northern and coastal provinces during hours.
  • The Yahoo! website was attacked at 10:30 PST on Monday, 7 February 2000. The attack lasted three hours. Yahoo was pinged at the rate of one gigabyte/second.
  • On 3 August 2000, Canadian federal prosecutors charged MafiaBoy with 54 counts of illegal access to computers, plus a total of ten counts of mischief to data for his attacks on Amazon.com, eBay, Dell Computer, Outlaw.net, and Yahoo. MafiaBoy had also attacked other websites, but prosecutors decided that a total of 66 counts was enough. MafiaBoy pleaded not guilty.
  • About fifty computers at Stanford University, and also computers at the University of California at Santa Barbara, were amongst the zombie computers sending pings in Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
  • In 26 March 1999, the Melissa worm infected a document on a victim's computer, then automatically sent that document and copy of the virus via e-mail to other people.
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Government resources

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See also

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References

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Balkin, J., Grimmelmann, J., Katz, E., Kozlovski, N., Wagman, S. & Zarsky, T. (2006) (eds) Cybercrime: Digital Cops in a Networked Environment, New York University Press, New York.

Brenner, S. (2007) Law in an Era of Smart Technology, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Csonka P. (2000) Internet Crime; the Draft council of Europe convention on cyber-crime: A response to the challenge of crime in the age of the internet? Computer Law & Security Report Vol.16 no.5.

Fafinski, S. (2009) Computer Misuse: Response, regulation and the law Cullompton: Willan

Grabosky, P. (2006) Electronic Crime, New Jersey: Prentice Hall

McQuade, S. (2006) Understanding and Managing Cybercrime, Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

McQuade, S. (ed) (2009) The Encyclopedia of Cybercrime, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Parker D (1983) Fighting Computer Crime, U.S.: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Pattavina, A. (ed) Information Technology and the Criminal Justice System, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Walden, I. (2007) Computer Crimes and Digital Investigations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wall, D.S. (2007) Cybercrimes: The transformation of crime in the information age, Cambridge: Polity.

Williams, M. (2006) Virtually Criminal: Crime, Deviance and Regulation Online, Routledge, London.

Yar, M. (2006) Cybercrime and Society, London: Sage.

  1. ^ Paul Taylor. Hackers: Crime in the Digital Sublime (November 3, 1999 ed.). Routledge; 1 edition. p. 200. ISBN 0415180724.
  2. ^ McConnell International (2000-12). "Cyber Crime . . . and Punishment? Archaic Laws Threaten Global Information" (PDF). LLC. Retrieved 2009-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "3.4 Specific Types of Spam". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  4. ^ Rhyolite Software (2006-11-25). "You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook If..." LLC. Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  5. ^ ". Infinite Monkeys & Co (2002-12-22). "Spam Defined". LLC. Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  6. ^ Schiller, Craig; Binkley, Jim (2007). Botnets: The Killer Web Applications. Rockland: Syngress.
  7. ^ , Wenke, Lee; Cliff, Wang; Dagon, David (2007). Botnet detection : countering the largest security threat. London: Springer.
  8. ^ "Computer Fraud". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  9. ^ USLegal. "Fraud Law & Legal Definition". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  10. ^ a b Convention on Cybercrime (2001-11-23). "Convention on Cybercrime". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  11. ^ Csonka P (2000). "Internet Crime; the Draft council of Europe convention on cyber-crime: A response to the challenge of crime in the age of the internet?". Computer Law & Security Report. 16 (5).
  12. ^ a b c Ashcroft, John (2001). Stalking and Domestic Violence: Report to Congress (PDF). Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  13. ^ NCSL (2009-03-12). "State Electronic Harassment or "Cyberstalking" Laws". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  14. ^ "llegal-drug sales boom from Internet". 2005-09-26. Retrieved 2009-11-01. {{cite web}}: Text "authorPsysorg.com" ignored (help)
  15. ^ Sharma (2001-03-03). "Internet drug trafficking needs international counter offensive". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  16. ^ a b INCB (2008). "Operation of the international drug control system" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  17. ^ INCB (2008). "Guidelines for Governments on Preventing the Illegal Sale of Internationally Controlled Substances through the Internet". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  18. ^ Brett Pladna. "Cyber Terrorism" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  19. ^ Dorothy E. Denning (2000-05-23). "CYBERTERRORISM". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  20. ^ Larry Barrett (2009-10-09). "Cyber Terrorism Demands New Tactics: Study". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
  21. ^ Soobia Afroz (2002-06-16). "Cyber terrorism — fact or fiction?". Retrieved 2009-11-01.
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