Types of cyber crime activities you should be aware of

Hacking and Web Hijacking

Hackers are intruders who access your computer system without your consent. Usually, they are computer programmers who possess advanced understanding of computers and misuse their knowledge. They are tech buffs with expertise in software programming languages. Their motives are many and hacking can be the modification of hardware or software to cause destruction, breaking into systems to steal personal and financial data, etc. Black Hat hackers cause only destruction, White Hat hackers attempt to break into the system and alert the owners of flaws. Grey Hat hackers are in between these two categories.

 

Virus Attacks

Computer viruses are programs with the ability to infect other programs. It can spread easily as it is possible to make copies of itself. Programs that multiply like viruses spread from one computer to the other and termed worms. The malicious software attach itself to other software and some of these are Logic Bomb, Bacterium, Time Bomb, Trojan Horse, etc. These malicious programs affect the computer data by altering or deleting the same.

Salami Attacks

Salami attacks are financial crimes aimed at altering details that are insignificant that they do go unnoticed. For instance, a bank employee inserting a program into the server of the bank deducting a small amount of money such as Rs. 5 per month from every customer's account. No one will notice such an unauthorized debit but this will help the employee make a sizable income on a monthly basis.

Phishing

Phishing is sending an email to a user with false claims to be an established legitimate enterprise. The purpose is to scam the user and make the person share personal data for identity theft. The email will redirect to a website prompting to share personal information including bank account details, password, credit card, etc. Later, the user details will be stolen and misused.

Software Piracy

Software piracy is the illegal copying of genuine programs and distribution of the same. Trademark violation, copyright infringement, patent violations, theft of computer source code, etc. are categorized under software piracy.

Cyber Stalking

Cyber stalking is a form of cyber crime that is increasing of late. It involves following a person online virtually collecting the target's online activity and harvesting the details to harass or threaten the person. It is the invasion of the online privacy of the target.

DoS (Denial of Service) Attack

DoS attack is an explicit attempt carried out by attackers to negate service to the target users. It is done by flooding a computer resource with more requests than the actual requests that it can handle. This way, the resource will consume a lot of bandwidth and cause server overload. Eventually, the resource crashes down over time. The attacker can render a website inoperable with extensive amount of traffic to it. These attacks are targeted at the high-profile website servers of banks and credit card payment gateways.

Data diddling

Data diddling is the unauthorized alteration of data during or before entry. Using this technique, the attackers can modify the output and it will be difficult to track it. This way, the attackers will be able to steal from the enterprise. It includes counterfeiting documents and exchanging with prepared replacements.

Pornography

Pornography is illegal in several countries and it includes pornographic websites, magazines, etc. using computer and internet. Even child pornography is a crime. Given that internet and computer access is easy these days, there is a lot of pornographic content everywhere. Luring targets into the trap and getting their pornographic photos and videos is a type of cyber crime.

Others common types of cyber crime

There are other forms of cyber crime including email bombing, the sale of illegal items, online gambling, email spoofing, cyber defamation, forgery, theft of electronic information, internet time theft, data breach, etc.