CYBER CRIME EXPLAINED

I was thinking about writing the first article on combating cybercrime when it dawned on me that a lot of misconception exists about what this type of crime implies. A lot of people have this vague idea about the actual meaning of cyber crime  and lack the understanding of cyber crime.

Crime can be viewed as any action that is regarded as illegal and punishable under the law of the state. Crime in essence can be viewed as a conduct which portends harm or negatively affect individuals, animals, society or the environment. Experience has shown that crime can be committed in error, deliberately or as a reflex reaction.

Cybercrime is a type of crime which involves the use of computers, internet/web and other technological implementations to conduct illegal activity. This type of crime takes different types of as the web is a wide virtual world where different types of transactions and interactions can be conducted. For the purpose of understanding, some of the types on crime that can be conducted on the web include;

• Spamming: Some of us are ignorant that sending unsolicited send of mail as part of bulk mailing list for commercial purpose is a crime. This practice exploit the mail address by collecting money from commercial firms for the number of mails sent. Some firms even sell CDs containing mail address and claim they are into e-marketing.

SELLING SOMEBODY ELSE’S MAIL ADDRESS IS A CRIME!

• Content Abuse: this crime represents the communication or transmission of contents that can offend or affect the state of mind of others. This can include racist images or videos, obscene images and other contents that fall into this category.
• Cyber Terrorism: The use of the web for terrorist attack is on as series of deliberated and calculated attempt at destroying the instrument of governance in governments are been targeted using sophisticated technological implementations. Some cases like illegal intrusion into technological infrastructure of government agencies have been recorded in the US and defacing of government related websites in Nigeria is another example.
• Cyber Fraud: This is the most prominent of the crime as various implementations have been deployed in using the web for swindling or deceptively collecting money from victims. This practice can take numerous forms like illegal account access, dishonest use of web interactions, misrepresentation of facts and even betrayal of trust in internet enabled relationships. This type of crime is so wide that it often dwarfs the effort of security agencies as it takes different dimensions. The prominent in developing nations like Nigeria is the popular practice called Yahoo Yahoo where victims are tricked to part with some money based on a juicy business offer or audacious inheritance offer.

This article cannot exhaust the crimes being perpetrated on the web. However, cyber crime represents every illegal or harmful use of the web as it relates to fellow human, animals, society or the environment. We will be exploiting the ways of combating this crime in subsequent posts.

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