CYBER CRIME

Crime happens every day around the world. Although one crime in particular has had a great amount
of growth, this crime has been classified as Cyber Crime. This type of crime was first acknowledged
in the mid 1980s and is now committed from millions of computers, cell phones, and other pieces of
technology every day. It has also had a significant amount of growth over the past decade due to the
increase of internet users and the rapid reproduction of technology. The effect that cyber crime has
on the economy and its victims is very drastic. In the 1990s cyber crimes were estimated at 80
million dollars in damages caused by nationwide virus outbreaks. The most common committed
types of cyber crime would be fraud, unauthorized computer access, cyber terrorism and copy right
violations.
Fraud has been titled the broadest category of cyber crime. According to the FBIs Internet Crime
Complaint Center in 2008, there were 275,284 complaints filed for fraudulent activity in the United
States alone. Fraud crimes are punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that was passed
by congress in 1984. Although many of these crimes that are committed are never brought to justice
because of lazy government officials and clean cyber criminals. There are also different types of
fraudulent activity. Some of the types would be credit card, wire, auction and business fraud.
Credit card fraud is committed through unauthorized access and charges to a person or businesss
credit card. In order for a cyber criminal to commit credit card fraud they must have a form of wire
fraud completed first to retrieve the information of the card. Wire fraud is fraudulent activity
committed only through electronic communications. Electronic communications includes
computers, phones, handhelds, etc. Business and auction fraud are the same kind of fraud because it
simply involves the non-delivery of paid merchandise to the consumer, the only difference between
the two would be a one...

Cyber crime is the latest and perhaps the most complicated problem in the cyber world. The term
Cyber Crime has nowhere been defined in any statute or Act passed or enacted by the Indian
Parliament.
Any criminal activity that uses a computer either as an instrumentality, target or a means for
perpetuating further crimes comes within the ambit of cyber crime.
It is rapidly evolving from simple e-mail mischief where offenders send obscene e-mail, to more
serious offences like theft of information, e-mail bombing to crashing servers etc.
The types of cyber crimes include pornography, cyber fraud, defamation, cyber stalking, harassment,
IPR theft, data hostage, money laundering, phishing, e-mail bombing, cyber war, illegal EFT.
Cyber crime is different and more heinous than conventional crime as in cyber crime; the crime is
committed in an electronic medium and here means read is not a requirement but is rather a general

rule under the penal provisions of the Information Technology Act. The Indian Parliament considered
it necessary to give effect to the resolution by which U.N.
General Assembly adopted Model Law on Electronic Commerce adopted by the United Nations
Commission on Trade Law. As a consequence of which the Information Technology Act, 2000 was
passed. This Act was a welcome step at a time when there was no legislation on this field. The Act
has however during its application proved to be inadequate and there are certain loopholes in the
Act.
Cyber Crime in the Act is neither comprehensive nor exhaustive. The Information Technology Act
has not dealt with cyber nuisance, cyber stalking, and cyber defamation and so on. Cases of spam,
hacking, stalking and e-mail fraud are rampant although cyber crimes cells have been set-up in
major cities. The problem is that most cases remain unreported due to lack of awareness.
Capacity of human mind is unfathomable. It is not possible to eliminate cyber crime from the cyber
space. However, it is quite possible to check them.
The home user segment is the largest recipient of cyber attacks as they are less likely to have
established security measures in place and therefore it is necessary that people should be made
aware of their rights and duties.
Users must try and save any electronic information trail on their computers, use of anti-virus
software, firewalls, use of intrusion detection system etc. and further making the application of the
laws more stringent to check crime.

Introduction
About two years ago I received a mail that I won a lottery worth 10 million dollars and
out of curiosity and excitement I unwrapped it but was disappointed .But then about
a couple weeks later though I did not receive the prize money but I received all sorts
of bills that had to be paid. My father received bills for many different things such as
electronics, clothes, and other items that had been purchased under our account on
the Internet. My father was so pissed off because he thought that my brother or I had
purchased all those items. So we called the Company and found that our computer
had been hacked into. And the so called hacker purchased items on our account
number. And we found that the hacker gained entry by a message that I had opened.
So we ended up paying only few thousands. This is called cyber crime but I prefer to
call it cyber terrorism that has attacked us from our computer screens and made our
lives miserable.
Types of Cyber Crime

Cybercrime is defined as crimes committed on the internet using computer as a tool

and we innocents are the target. There are various forms of cyber crime like
Spamming. I am sure all of us has encountered unwanted product advertisements.
PIRACY is also a serious threat that involves illegal reproduction and distribution of
software applications, games, movies and audio CDs which is causing a huge monetary
loss to entertainment industry world wide
Hacking is also a serious crime by a hacker who is simply a talented computer user
who misuse his vast knowledge . Virus attacks that say I love you enters our
computer and destroys all the computer information are also a serious threat.
Computer frauds , thefts and harassments through social networking sites like orut
and facebook are also daggering our lives. Undoubtedly we cannot single out only one
crime that is posing maximum threat but all forms of crimes are equally posing a
serious threat to both business and individuals.
Ways to fight cyber crime by individuals.
To fight back the individual and businessman should be proactive, not reactive We do
not have to remain at the receiving end of crime forever. The fight against cyber
crime starts in our very own home .We should not reply any e-mail from unknown
persons, we should learn to report spam mails to the e-mail servers .We should not
upload our personal information on social networking sites or our account details on
other such sites. Also the use antivirus soft wares can be a great help to fight against
viruses and worms.
Ways to fight cyber crime by government
The author of the "Lovebug" virus remains free because his nation did not have cyber
crime laws. The "AnnaKournikova" virus caused billions of dollars in damage, but the
individual who distributed it received only 150 hours of community service as a
penalty Cybercrime is not armed robbery, not pen and paper crime and should
not be handle as such. Fighting Cybercrime requires intelligent knowledge and that
has to be IT intelligence. What I mean is this, men of the regular Police force should
not be allowed to investigate crimes committed over the internet. IT experts should
be recruited into law enforcement agencies to assist in the fight.At this hour when
cyber crime is growing in leaps and bounds with growing technology the government
need to strengthen criminal penalties against computer crimes; work to harmonize
laws against cyber crime internationally; and improve coordination among law
enforcement authorities in different jurisdictions.
Conclusion
There will always be new and unexpected challenges to stay ahead of cyber criminals
and cyber terrorists but we can win only through partnership and collaboration of
both individuals and government. There is much we can do to ensure a safe, secure
and trustworthy computing environment. It is crucial not only to our national sense of
well-being, but also to our national security and economy.