Cyber

Cyber-Crime is a Serious Problem Essay Millions of people around the world use computers and the internet every day. We all use it in school, work even at home, computers have made us life easier, it has brought so many benefits to the society but it has also brought some problems and cybercrimes is one of them. â€Å"The times have really changed,† said Greg Garcia, the department’s assistant secretary for cyber security and communications. â€Å"We’re seeing now phishing, farming, botnets †¦ war dialing and domain server spoofing. And we’re seeing coordinated cyber-attacks against nation states.† (Fowler 5) Cybercrime is one of the most prevalent and most popular rising crimes being committed today. This is criminal activity done using computers and the Internet. There are millions victims around the world everyday who face these problems. Most people become victims of these at one time or another, but there are ways to avoid or deal with cybercrime by protecting yourself appropri ately. I also was one of those victims who faced a similar problem. This unfortunate truth forces me to understand that computers and the Internet have made our lives easier in many ways. However, it is unfortunate that people also use these technologies to take advantage of others through identity theft, hacking attempts, and malicious use of software. To be able to understand cybercrimes we need to know where it started. It all started with the birth of the internet. In the late 1960s, one of the authors (HMD) was a graduate student at MIT. His research at MIT’s project MAC (now the Laboratory for computer – the home of the World Wide Web Consortium) was funded by APRA – the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense. Later on APRA proceeded to implement the APRANET, which eventually developed into today’s Internet. At the beginning Internet was limited to universities and research institutions later time the military began using the Internet. Eventually, the government decided to allow access to the Internet for commercial purposes; however it doesn’t stop there businesses rapidly realized that Internet can boost up their business where they provide better services for their clients. The result is that bandwidth on the Internet has increased tremendously and costs have decrea sed significantly. Now days we can’t imagine life without Internet because it makes our daily work easier. According to P.J. Deitel and H.M. Deitel â€Å"The Internet and the web are surely among humankind’s most profound creations† (Deitel 11). As the Internet increased access to increasing numbers of systems worldwide, criminals used unauthorized access to poorly protected systems for vandalism, political action and financial gain (Internet World Wide Web : How to Program). Identity theft via cybercrime is one of the fastest growing crimes in America, costing billions of dollars each year. Identity theft is a form of theft in which the targets are bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, social security numbers and information that is linked to a persons identity. Identity theft is the worst of the cybercrimes against individuals. Moreover, it is not just a person who has high credit score need to be worry about it. According to Federal Trade Commission estimates (FTC) â€Å"more than four hundred thousand children have their identity stolen every year† (17). People who involved these kinds of cybercriminals they often obtain access to their birth certificates and run up debts in their names. The victims normally do not know anything about it until they denied for employment, student loans, or find themselves unable to get driver licenses because somebody already using their social security number. Sometimes even those innocent people get arrest ed for those crimes which they never committed. The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) has over 1,600 active investigations which are somehow related with identity theft. According to FBI, they opened 1,081 investigations related to identity theft in 2003, and 889 in 2004. Some of these cases are still pending to solve. I am already a victim of identity theft. I moved here in 2005 from Canada. I went to buy a car in 2007, and they told me need to run my credit history before they can approve me for car loans. I never obtain my credit history before that, so I never know what is in my record. According to loan officers after run my credit history they found out I have one collection accounts on my record. I was really surprised and stunned what they are talking about I have no idea at all. They explained to me a debt collection is one of the worst entries on your credit report. Later, they found more information about this account and it was Visa credit card account from Bloomingdales and it was surprised me when they told me somebody opened this account in 2004. I was not even here around that time. After long investigation I found out somebody might be still my identity from Canada and they used it in USA. After long investigation they remove it from my credit report finally in 2006. It took almost one year to remove all those from my record and it’s disappointed me a lot. Before this incident occurred I heard about identity theft but never realized that I have to such a big price one day in my life. I learned important many important lessons through this whole process. I have found that in identity theft cases the burden of proving innocence rests on the shoulders of the victim. Athens And Sparta: Similarities And Differences EssayThe Internet has brought enormous changes and benefits to the way organizations can do business and interact with other businesses, people, and government authorities. Each of us is confronted with cyber technologies every day in our life. It can be iPhone, GPS for driving direction or a computer. Those technologies have opened up opportunities that would be unthinkable without those. While progress has brought about many good things, the ease and accessibility of the Internet has also brought with it some concerning and serious disadvantages. Many of those disadvantages directly affect our children, our privacy, our Identity, and even threat to our nation. According to Cyber-crime people can commit a crime in the US while people sit comfortably in their apartment in China. However, Cyber-crime is only important to a few people, but I believe it should be important to everyone. If we become aware of the dangers of being online, t he dangers will slowly disappear. If everyone watches out for viruses, they will not spread nearly as far or fast as they currently do. We don’t want to all those benefits which I mentioned earlier come risks. Therefore, this is time to work everybody together to prevent this problem. Works Cited Bainwol, Mitch, and Cary Sherman. â€Å"A Crackdown on Student Internet Copyright Infringers Is Necessary.† Cyber Crime. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2009.166-172. Print. â€Å"Cyber Insecurity: Viruses, Spam, and Spyware.† Consumer Reports. Sep. 2006: 20-24. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 3rd February 2011. Deitel, P.J., and H. M. Deitel. Internet World Wide Web How to Program: Fourth Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2008. Print. Garcia, Andrew. â€Å"Browsers: The New Threat Landscape† Internet Safety. Ed. Richard Joseph Stein. New York, NY: H. W. Wilson Company, 2008. 11-13. Print. Lenard, Thomas I. â€Å"Identity Theft Is a Declining Problem.† Cyber Crime. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2009. 26-34. Print. Swecker, Chris. â€Å"Identity Theft Is a Serious Problem.† Cyber Crime. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Farming Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2009. 21-25. Print. Schneir, Bruce. â€Å"Weak Federal Disclosure Laws Will Not Protect Consumers.† Cyber Crime. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2009. 150-155. Print.