Computer crime/misuse
- What is computer crime?
Computer crime is a criminal act that has been committed using a computer has principal tool. It is against the law to have access to unauthorised information unless the owner has given the right to. The most common way of committing computer crime is by using the computer as an instrument for the crime. The different types of computer crimes are phishing, hacking, cyber stalking and identity theft; this is the most serious crime where financial information of the user is stolen and is used by the fraud to steal money from the account of the user. Identity theft can also be identity cloning, where the fraud uses personal details of the user as a false user. By doing they usually change the address and some other things, this way any information is sent directly to them instead of the actual address.
On November 24 2008, four men where arrested in America for identity Theft. They were able to gain personnel information of users through identity theft and unauthorised computer access. The men arrested were part of a multi-national identity theft ring that operates in many different countries. The men were able to gain unauthorised access to victim’s on-line bank accounts. This way they were able to funds from home equity lines of credit belonging to victims.
Mortgage equity wasn’t the only crime involved, there was also credit cards frauds etc... The men were able to impersonate customer through a process known as “social engineering” where they used technology to disguise caller identification information and change customer address information in bank files. By doing this at least $2.5 million made their way to conspirators in different countries.
The four men were arrested but not sentenced yet. But if sentenced they would face a maximum of 50 year imprisonment and up to $1.5 million in fine.
This case study does not mention that something has been done to protect the victims that have been...