List of main causes of cyber crimes

Cyber crime is a crime that involves a computer and a network. Cyber crimes can be defined as offences that are committed against individuals or groups of individuals with a criminal motive to intentionally harm the reputation of the victim or cause physical or mental harm, or loss to the victim directly or indirectly. According to
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT 2000 cyber crime can be defined as:

• A crime done through a computer.
• An illegal activity committed on the internet.
• Where the computer acts as a tool for crime.
• And exposed to internet security. For example: fraud, identity theft etc.

There are many types of cyber crime but the top 5 popular cyber crimes are as follows:

• • Phishing Scams: Phishing is a practice of a cyber criminal or hacker attempting to obtain sensitive or personal information from a computer user like banking passwords, home addresses or even social security number etc. To avoid this kind of scams we recommend using a phishing filter feature on your web browser so that it can actively scan websites that you visit to check.

•  Identify Theft Scams: Cyber crooks who may have gained access to your credit card or banking account information may use that information to make purchases in your name and this is known as identify theft scams. The way to protect yourself from this is be alert if you find any suspicious activity in your bank account directly report to the respective banks.

• Online Harassment: This is the most popular crime during recent time. This crime usually takes place on social media sites like Facebook and twitter. Online harassment can consist of threats sent through emails; instant messages etc. online harassment also includes cyber bullying.

• Cyber Stalking: Cyber stalkers will go to great lengths to try to monitor a victim’s online activity. This may include infecting a person’s computer with malware that is able to log computer activity. Cyber stalkers may contact a victim’s colleagues, friends and other online contacts in an effort to slander them or extract personal information from them.

• Invasion of Privacy: The invasion of privacy is basically the act of someone attempting to intrude on a person’s personal life. This includes hacking into a person’s computer, reading their emails or monitoring online activities etc.

We could list the following reasons for the cyber crime:

• •  EASY TO ACCESS: Technology is developing day by day. As everything has its pros and cons in the same way technology has to its pros and cons. In today’s era it is very easy for the hackers to access the password of your laptops, computers, and other things which leads to more cyber crimes like bank fraud, leaking of important information etc.

  • Complex: As the technology is growing, it is also becoming complex as it runs on many operating systems and every individual is not able to cope up with all these complexities and the hacker takes advantage of this gap.

  •  Loss of evidence: The data related to the crime can be easily destroyed. so, loss of evidence has become a very common and obvious problem which paralyzes the system behind the investigation of cyber- crime.

  • Negligence: Negligence is one of the characteristics of human conduct. while using internet or laptops we can be negligible and this can result into hacking.

The list can be endless, the only way to protect ourselves is to be alert and to take proper steps when needed. There are many NGOs , welfare societies which are there to deal with these type of crimes so you can contact them.

BE ALERT AND BE SAFE.

Article By- Arushi Agrawal

Editing By- Jasleen Kaur