CYBER CRIME

Cyber crime or computer crime refers to crime that involves a computer and network. Some common examples of cyber crime include identity theft, financial fraud, web site defacement and cyber bullying. At an organizational level, cyber crime may involve the hacking of databases and theft of intellectual property or confidential information. Many users think they can protect themselves, their accounts and their computers at home with just anti-spyware and anti-virus software. At work, many employees believe that the organization will provide all the protection needed, so they think they don’t need to be concerned about their cyber-activity. Cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated and they are targeting consumers as well as public, private and state organizations. Therefore, additional layers of defense are needed. Criminals take advantage of technology in many different ways. The Internet, in particular, is a great tool for hackers and other miscreants since it allows them to ply their trade while hiding behind a shield of digital anonymity. Cyber crime affects society in a number of different ways.

There are three major categories of cyber crimes which are crimes against the person, property and the government. The first category of cyber crimes is cyber crime against person. Cyber crime against person is included harassment via email or cyber-stalking. Cyber Stalking means following the moves of an individual's activity over internet. It can be done with the help of many protocols available such at e- mail, chat rooms, user net groups while, harassment can be included sexual, racial, religious, or others. This crime usually happens to women and teenager. There is a case happened to a girl in Ahmedabad, Gujarat India. She was lured to a private place through cyber chat by a man with his friends, attempted to rape her. Luckily she was rescue by passersby that heard she cried she was rescued. Second category of cyber crimes is that of cyber crimes against all forms of property. These crimes include computer vandalism by transmission of harmful programmed to other computer through internet. The other example is cyber criminal can take the contents of individual bank account. One widespread method of getting people's bank account details is the money transfer email scam. People receive emails requesting help with transferring funds from another country. Hacking into company websites is property trespass, and stealing information is property theft. Internet time theft also one of the cyber crime against property. It is done by an authorized person in the usage of the internet hours which is actually paid by another person.The third category is cyber crimes against governments constitute another level of crime. Cyber terrorism is the most serious type of crime in this category. Hacking into a government website, particularly the military sites, is one manifestation of cyber terrorism. The example of cyber crime against government is web jacking. By web jacking, hackers gain access and control over the website of another, even they change the content of website for fulfilling political objective or for money.

Example of cyber crime that happened in Malaysia:

RM1bil lost to cyber crimes

There is a growing concern over the increasing numbers of cyber crimes in Malaysia, says Deputy IGP Mohd Bakri Zin.

CYBERJAYA: Cyber crime is a ticking bomb in Malaysia according to the police.
Between January and July this year the Malaysian police recorded RM1 billion in losses from victims of such crime, said Deputy Inspector-General of Police Mohd Bakri Zinin.
He said US-based IT security developer, SOPHOS had it is three-month Security Threat report this year ranked Malaysia as sixth globally in terms of cyber crime threat risks.
“It (cyber crime) is serious and we must educate the public in preventing it,” he told a press conference after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Royal Malaysian Police and Limkokwing University, here yesterday.
The MoU was signed by Federal Commercial Crime Investigation Department director, Syed Ismail Syed Azizan, and Limkokwing University of Creative Technology senior vice-president Raja Aznil Raja Hashim.
It provides the university with a five-year contract to provide contents such as posters, video clips and animations to the police in cyber crime-prevention campaigns.
Mohd Bakri said out of the RM1 billion in losses from cyber crime in the first six months of this year, 9,857 cases were reported with 7,801 of these solved and 3,385 people detained.
He said last year, the losses amounted to RM1.115 billion with 8,920 of the 11,543 reported cases solved and 3,712 people arrested.
Meanwhile, Syed Ismail said most of the cyber crime committed in the country were through parcel scams, selling goods via the Internet, and masquerading.
“Cyber crime in the country has yet to reach a level, where a syndicate would steal an information or intellectual property from a person or
organisation and sell it to other parties or a rival for a price,” he said.
Therefore, Raja Aznil said the collaboration with the police in the campaign was vital to educate the public on the prevention measures so that they would not easily fall prey to cyber crime.

“This campaign mainly targets the young generation as they are tech-savvy in using computers and mobile devices.
“They are also prone to be influenced by what is posted on the Internet, making them easy prey,” he said.
-Bernama