CATEGORIES OF COMPUTER CRIMES
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The purpose of this paper is to cover the four common computer crime categories with examples, state which computer crime category we see as posing the greatest threat, and finally to discuss what U.S. government, courts and law enforcement agencies can do to better protect against that threat. Starting with the basis of this paper, the four common computer crime categories are: computers as a target, computers as an instrument of a crime, computers as incidental to crime, and crimes associated with the prevalence of computers.
The first computer crime category is computers as the target. During this crime, the attacker attempts to deny a computer's authorized user and/or owner from services which the user would typically freely have access to. Another aspect of this crime category is when a cyber criminal alters data the computer's owner feels is privately safeguarded. One of the most well known examples of this category took place on February 7, 2000; when the Yahoo! website was attacked and shut down for over two and a half hours, causing the public a denial of service from the popular site.
Day 293 - West Midlands Police - Child Online Safe...
Cover of 2007 Internet Crime Report
Suicide of Ryan Halligan(Grice, 2000)
The next category of computer crimes is when a computer is the instrument for a crime. This is when cyber criminals use a computer to access a network or computer system with the intent to commit online theft, fraud, exploitation, or threaten and/or harassment. This crime is often done maliciously and with a specific purpose in mind. There is a website available to internet users to assist them if they feel they are a victim of online harassment. This site titled "Working to Halt Online Abuse", for which they use the acronym WHO@, helps people with tips of what they should do in they are the victim of harassment;...