cybercrime

Cybercrime is a term used broadly to describe activity in which computers or networks are a tool, a target, or a place of criminal activity. These categories are not exclusive and many activities can be characterized as falling in one or more categories.

Overview

Although the term cybercrime is usually restricted to describing criminal activity in which the computer or network is an essential part of the crime, this term is also used to include traditional crimes in which computers or networks are used to enable the illicit activity.

Examples of cybercrime in which the computer or network is a tool of the criminal activity include spamming and criminal copyright crimes, particularly those facilitated through peer-to-peer networks.

Examples of cybercrime in which the computer or network is a target of criminal activity include unauthorized access (i.e, defeating access controls), malicious code, and denial-of-service attacks.

Examples of cybercrime in which the computer or network is a place of criminal activity include theft of service (in particular, telecom fraud) and certain financial frauds.

Finally, examples of traditional crimes facilitated through the use of computers or networks include Nigerian 419 or other gullibility or social engineering frauds (e.g., hacking "phishing", identity theft, child pornography, online gambling, securities fraud, etc. Cyberstalking is an example of a traditional crime -- harassment -- that has taken a new form when facilitated through computer networks.

Additionally, certain other information crimes, including trade secret theft and industrial or economic espionage, are sometimes considered cybercrimes when computers or networks are involved.

Cybercrime in the context of national security may involve hacktivism (online activity intended to influence policy), traditional espionage, or information warfare and related activities.

Another way to define cybercrime is simply as criminal activity involving the information technology infrastructure, including illegal access (unauthorized access), illegal interception (by technical means of non-public transmissions 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.

External links

Academic links

• Cybercrimes.net and Cyb3rCrim3.org Susan W. Brenner
• Cybercrime - High Tech crime JISC Legal Information Service
• Criminal Justice Resources - Cybercrime
• Cybercrime NYLS
• Cybercrime Law
• Council of Europe - Draft Convention on cyber-crime (Draft N° 27)
• Computer Crime Research Center

Government resources

• Cybercrime.gov US Department of Justice CCIPS
• US CERT United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT)
• FBI Cyber Investigations Home Page
• US Secret Service Computer Fraud
• On Guard OnGuardOnline.gov
• ID Theft
• FindLaw Computer Crime
• RCMP Computer Crime Prevention Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center

Commercial resources

• Annual e-Crime Conference : International Conference for Public & Private Security Specialists

Further reading

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of

Legal and Regulatory Issues in the Information Economy

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