9781422283981

What Is Cyber Crime? Cyber crime is any type of crime performed over computer networks. As more and more of our lives take place online, more and more criminal operations migrate there as well. In the 2010s, cyber crime has cost the global economy billions of dollars yearly. New types of cyber crime appear constantly. They include financial crimes, such as credit card theft and fraud; identity theft; attacks on networks to steal information; and abuse, particularly sex crimes, prostitution, and sexual exploita- tion of children. The world’s law enforcement agencies have jumped into the fray and are trying to stay ahead of the criminals—or at least not too far behind them. Opening Up New Territories Not long after Christopher Columbus voyaged from Spain to the Americas, for- tune hunters and pirates roamed the oceans to steal the gold that had been found there. Entrepreneurs persuaded the optimistic, or the gullible, to invest in new ventures that were doomed to fail. Investors in England poured money into a company that promised huge profits from trade with South America. The South Sea Bubble and the collapse of that business in the early 1700s, remains one of the most notorious corporate failures in history. In the new millennium, dot-com collapses echoed that disaster. Opening up the American West in the 19th century brought robbers, gam- bling, share swindles, and cattle rustling in its wake. Western movies celebrate the battles between good guys and bad guys. Without new technology, the West would not have been won so quickly: the railroad and telegraph made the rapid exploitation of a huge new territory possible. Nor would it have been won so quickly without the mavericks, those that rejected authority and cut corners. A fine line divides heroes and villains. Cyberspace is also a new territory. As in the past, it is criminals who have been among the first to recognize the potential of a wide-open, sparsely populated, and poorly policed space. The crimes are similar, too. Theft, fraud, breaking and entering, vandalism, illegal betting, the sex trade, and investment scams are all a part of the Internet crime wave. Law enforcement agencies are fighting to keep up with an explosion of crimes that do not recognize interna- tional boundaries.

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CYBER CRIME