Network or Computer Crimes

Computer crimes are offenses involving network or computer devices, whereby the computer may be used in the crime commission are targeted by the offender. Computer crimes can be defined as offenses committed against a person with the intent of causing mental or physical harm or destruction of the victim’s reputation. Computer crimes cause serious impact to companies and the globe at large in 2015 a report established by McAfee was estimated to cause annual damage to the economy of the world amounting to $445 billion. For instance, a sum of about $1.5 billion was lost to online debit and credit card in the same year (Whitman, Mattord, Green, & Mattord, 2014). In 2016, the amount lost has been increasing every day such that in the report developed in 2016 it indicated that the amount lost had increased in such a manner that Jupiter Research estimated that cyber crimes could have reached 2.1 trillion loss by 2019. This paper will discuss three types of computer crime which include Malware, Identity theft and scam. Examples of incidents of these crimes will be discussed and the impact they have caused the organizations.

Malware

A malware computer crime which is also known as malicious software involves computer programs that are designed in a manner that damage and infiltrate the computer without involving users’ consent (Chan, 2010). These crimes involve a variety of action that may be carried out in the computer or network such as spyware, viruses, Trojan, worms and rootkits among others (Whitman, Mattord, Green, & Mattord, 2014). There are various companies that have encountered malware practices which has caused various losses to the company.

The advancement and growing popularity of Android Company had also experienced increased chances of the company encountering malware practices. Cases on Malware increase with the popularity of android product in the market. For instance, malware incidents in 2012 added up to 238 and in 2013 it had increased to 804. This increase was encountered after there was a combination of new threats emanating from Apple, Microsoft, Black Berry OS and Nokia Axed Symbian platform. Studies about the mobile malware indicated that 97 percent are committed on Android devices (Jiang & Zhou, 2013). Studies have revealed that Android phones care be easily hacked with simple text. The Company imposes a 95 percent of hacking risks on its uses. This had led to the device requirement that they should be installed with antivirus and protective measures that minimized malware incidents.

International Dairy Queen Inc. is a company that owns franchises and operates a chain of the fast-food restaurants in Canada, United States and other international fast food restaurants. The company used computer systems to manage the diverse restaurants. Malware affected the company whereby about 400 customers of daily Queens as well as orange Julius stores encountered compromised debit and credit card information in October 2014 (Richardson, 2016). Back-off malware also infested the payment system of the company whereby a third party vendor stole credential information the company’s account resulting in financial loss.

Identity theft

Identify theft refers to the acts of obtaining personal information illegally. The perpetrators of this crime aim to obtain information such as full names, address, maiden name, date of births, password, social security number, email address, credits number and phone numbers. In a study conducted in 2017, it revealed that there were about 16.7 million people who were victims of identity theft the amounts lost through the incidents of identify theft adds up to $16.8 billion, which indicated an increase of about 12 percent from the report in 2016 (Chan, 2010). There are various activities that the perpetrators of identity theft engage in, which include credit card fraud, miscellaneous identify theft, bank fraud, phone and utilities fraud, tax fraud, new accounts, employment fraud, benefit and government documents fraud and lease or loan fraud.

A report established by Javelin Strategy and Research revealed that in the United States of America, there were more than 1 million children victimized through identify theft. These activities led to about $2.6 billion loss. Children are targeted by hackers whereby they begin their footprint online earlier that adults as well as digitized school and medical records (Fortune, 2018). The existences of Child identity in computer and network systems have created the risk of the child being victimized. As a result, parents are advised to ensure they check their child’s credit scores so that they freeze them in case they identify suspicious activity taking place.

In another study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there were 17.6 million people victimized through identity theft in 2015. This represents about 7 percent of the residents of the United States aged above 16 years in 2014. The report revealed that about 8.6 million victims encountered credit card fraud, 8.1 million were victimized through unauthorized use of existing bank accounts and 1.5 million experienced other identify fraud, such as misuse of existing telephone, insurance accounts and online accounts (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2015).

Scams

The growth of online services in the use of the internet has facilitated various criminal to engage in the commission of scam. The dishonest schemes take advantages of people do not suspect the scam and persuade them to benefit from money or personal access details (Chan, 2010). There are various types of scam taking place online which include unexpected money scam, unexpected prize scam, extortion and threats scams, romance and dating scams and investment or job scams. People are advised to refrain from responding to online fraud or scam.

Sony Play station network hack encountered scams, computer crimes whereby names, address and personals details of approximately 77 million people were stolen from the company. In 2012, the company was advised to embrace protection measures against scam such as updating the systems time to time and establishing measures that control the content and access of the information to external people (Neate, 2012).

Facebook had also been victimized through click-jacking scam. in the Facebook website there exist links to video which takes the user to other fake pages that request the use to produced their login details for them to view the videos. Once the used provides their identity the theft obtain the information they need. This had led to many people providing information to unauthorized persons. To prevent this, users are advised to refrain from clicking links they are not sure of (Neate, 2012).

References

1. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2015, September 27). 17.6 Million U.S Residents Experienced Identity Theft in 2014. Retrieved September 25, 2018, from Bureau of Justice Statistics: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/vit14pr.cfm
2. Chan, H. K. (2010). A comparative study of reported and unreported computer crimes.
3. Fortune, C. M. (2018, April 24). More than 1 million children were victims of identity theft in 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2018, from Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/over-1-million-children-were-victims-of-identity-theft-in-2017-2018-4?IR=T
4. Jiang, X., & Zhou, Y. (2013). A Survey of Android Malware. Android Malware, 3-20.
5. Neate, T. (2012, January 3). The 10 biggest cyber crimes of 2011. Retrieved September 9, 2018, from Real Business: https://realbusiness.co.uk/tech-and-innovation/2012/01/03/the-10-biggest-cyber-crimes-of-2011/
6. Richardson, L. (2016). 2002: The Dairy Queen. Seven Minutes from Home, 81-84.
7. Whitman, M. E., Mattord, H. J., Green, A. W., & Mattord, H. (2014). Principles of Incident Response and Disaster Recovery, 2nd Edition. DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University.