CYBER-CRIME

Cyber-crime: Next time you get that mail, be careful Any criminal activity that uses a computer either as an instrument, target or a means for perpetuating further crimes comes within the ambit of cyber crime. A generalized definition of cyber crime may be "unlawful acts, wherein the computer is either a tool or target or both". The computer may be used as a tool in the following kinds of activity? financial crimes, sale of illegal articles, pornography, online gambling, intellectual property crime, email spoofing, forgery, cyber defamation, harassment, cyber stalking (following a person's movement through the Internet).


The computer may, however, be target for unlawful acts in the following cases? unauthorized access to the computer, computer system, computer networks, theft of information contained in the electronic form, email bombing, Trojan attacks, Internet time thefts, theft of computer system, physically damaging the computer system. Cyber crimes could be directed against individuals (in person or property), organizations (government or firms) or the society at large.


Cyber-terrorism is the convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. It is generally understood to mean unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers, networks, and the information stored therein when done to intimidate or coerce a government or its people in the furtherance of political or social objectives. Further, to qualify as cyber terrorism, an attack should result in violence against persons or property, or at least cause enough harm to generate fear. Serious attacks against critical infrastructure could be acts of cyber terrorism, depending on their impact. Attacks that disrupt non-essential services or that are mainly a costly nuisance would not.


Emails are one of the most common tools to carry out a crime. In the recent Parliament bomb scare, an email was used to convey the threat. So, email tracking is one of the most common duties of cyber crime investigators. The investigator needs to look at each point through which the email passed, working step by step back to the originating computer, and, eventual ally, the perpetrator. Forensic email tracing relies on computer logs. A computer log is a record of each email message that passes through a computer in a network and provides an audit trail of every machine an e-mail has passed through. Any computer on a network has an Internet protocol address (the virtual equivalent of a street address).