Computer crime is known by lots of different names, including cybercrime, e-crime, or electronic crime. All of these are crimes where computers or networks are used or attacked. These electronic crimes are being used to steal identities and huge sums of money. Many traditional crimes such as theft, blackmail, forgery, embezzlement and fraud today are all conducted on the internet.
With the growing use of computers, cyber crime is becoming more and more predominant in today's world. Various types of Cyber crimes that can be encountered over the net are:
Spam
Spam, or the unsolicited sending out of junk e-mails for commercial purposes, which is unlawful. New anti-spam laws are being passed in various countries which will hopefully limit the use of unsolicited electronic communications.
Fraud
Computer fraud refers to the fallacious misrepresentation of fact conveyed with an intention of inducing another to do or refrain from doing something that will ultimately lead to some major kind of loss.
Obscene or Offensive Content
The contents of some of the websites and other electronic communications over the net can be really distasteful, obscene or offensive for a variety of reasons. In many countries such communications are considered illegal. It can be very troubling if your children are exposed to adult content.
Harassment
This cyber crime encompasses all the obscenities and derogatory comments directed towards a specific individual or individuals focusing for example on gender, race, religion, nationality, and sexual orientation. Harassment is the cybercrime most commonly encountered in chat rooms or through newsgroups.
Drug Trafficking
Drug traffickers use the Internet as a medium for trading their illegal substances by sending out enciphered e-mail and other Internet Technology. Most of the drug traffickers can be found arranging their illegal deals at internet cafes, using courier websites for the delivery of illegal packages containing drugs, and sharing formulas for amphetamines in restricted-access chat rooms.
Cyber Terrorism
Due to the increase in cyber terrorism, the hacking into official websites or the crashing of official websites, government officials and Information Technology security specialists have recently begun a significant increase their mapping of potential security holes in critical systems in order to better protect information sensitive sites.
Common Sources of Cybercrime
Researchers at Sophos Labs claim to have created a language software that can figure out the host country of malicious software by tracing the default language of the computer on which it was programmed. According to their analysis of the default language linked up with about 19,000 samples at the end of last year, Americans and other non-British English speakers, surprisingly, produced a large proportion of malware. China produced 30%, Brazil with 14.2% and Russia produced 4.1% of the world's malware.
Many Internet users are unaware that most anti-virus programs quickly become out of date as new and more sophisticated viruses enter the world of cyber-space everyday.
Anti-virus software must be consistently updated in order to remain effective. In some cases it is necessary to buy an entirely new program to help keep your computer virus free.
Most anti-virus programs allow you to update the original program by downloading the newest and most recent updates to their virus protection system. These updates can then provide protection for your computer against new strands of viruses waiting to infect your computer.
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