Different Types of Computer Behaviors and Topologies

Discuss the Different types of computer behaviours and topologies, Comparison of the similarities between different types of computer criminal behaviour and topologies and Analysis of how organizations can benefit from understanding each of these different computer criminal behaviours and topologies?

According to Gostev (2012), the development of digital technologies represents an opportunity for any business to provide new tools for communication. The online activities become central to the way people live. However, this internet represents opportunities to cyber criminals. Computer crime is an act that is performed by the computer user, sometimes referred to as hacker that browses the company’s private information illegally (Greenbaum, 2015).  Additionally, computer crime includes the crimes that are to be conducted using internet such as hate crimes, online fraud, thefts of bank account details; these are considered to be computer or cyber crimes when these illegal activities are to be dedicated through the use of computer (Walker-Osborn & McLeod, 2015).

According to Prasanthi (2015), at a basic level, the types of computer behaviour are divided into the following categories, but there is no such universally accepted typology of the Internet crimes.

Online Assault: It involves the violence that is raised through internet such as the threats that results in emotional response on the victim. The online assaults are of different types such as cyber bullying, online sexual exploitation of children etc. Cyber bullying occurs when the minors use the internet devices to tease as well as harass other minors (Henson, Reyns & Fisher, 2011). The online sexual exploitation occurs when a child by using internet; establish some online relationships with other children. Social networking sites are the place for the offender to make such type of crime (Patel, 2012).

Online Fraud: It uses the online sites in an effort to profit financially. Such types of online fraud are sale fraud, inheritance scams as well as phishing etc. In sale fraud, the selling of products on the online sites is misrepresented by the seller of the products (Walker-Osborne & Price, 2011). Therefore, after the payment of the products, they never delivered those products to the buyer (Keen, 2011). Such that in inheritance scams, a criminal contacted the victim and told that they win some lottery online of a large amount (Al-Agaga, 2012). Then the victim is being instructed to pay an amount to initiate the process to deliver the money. In phishing, the criminal poses as lawful business includes credit card Company, online retailer to convince the victim to give the information related to password; bank details (Sood & Enbody, 2011). Sometimes, it also involves spoofed emails to do the fraud. Such schemes are used to take the personal information of the victim to profit financially by withdrawing funds from the account of that victim (Holt, 2014).

Comparison of Similarities Between Different Types of Computer Criminal Behavior and Topologies

Cyber extortion: It occurs when a website as well as computer system is endangered with repeated denial of service by the malicious hackers. These hackers claim for money in return of promise to stop the attacks and promise to offer protection (Barn, 2012)

Online theft: It is mainly used to steal the information as well as money from the owner. This type of crime often involves the misuse of the victim’s personal information for the purpose of committing theft (Vijaya Geeta, 2011). It consists of online piracy to share intellectual property by using the Internet; the problem of piracy is being compounded by peer-to-peer contribution of files throughout which the resources can be distributed illegally (Edwards, 2014).

Online Intrusion: It involves the use of internet to infect the space of other individual, computer systems (Takieddine & Sun, 2015). It is the act that an individual attempt to surpass a computer system’s safety measures is referred to as hacking. Viruses are designed to spread throughout the whole computer to reduce the efficiency of the system (Raiu, 2012).

The similarities between different types of computer criminal behaviour and topologies are that all the computer crime is being unauthorized access to computer systems or any networks (Caldwell, 2013). Most of the crime includes the stealing of information stored in the computer hard disks or detachable storage media. Normally, this kind of theft is done by getting hold of access of the login id as well as password of the victim (Cornford, 2011). This is one of the reported cases of cyber crime in all over the world.  The crime is done against any organization, individuals, individual property (Nuredini, 2014). The offenders focus on the financial gain such as the use of phishing emails to gain access to details of the bank account. At the time of investigating the threat, the law enforcement is challenged while tracing the actions to the source (Barmaki, 2012). In some instances, technological devices are served as repositories for evidence of the cybercrime. All these cyber crimes would be harmful for the organization in the area of financial property as well as transfer of data within the organizations (Bednar, Katos & Hennell, 2014).

Mostly, computer crimes focus on the financial gain but in case of child exploitation, the motive is not always profit. The motive may include intellectual curiosity or challenge, revenge, gaining some respect in online communities etc. The difference between a cyber attacks to commit crime as well as commit terror is found in the intension of the attacker (Mitchell & Chen, 2014). Online frauds as well as online theft are different from each other. Fraud is a lie, if someone allows believing something that is not true and the victim are being fraud. Theft is losing of money from computer crime.

Comparison of Differences Between Different Types of Computer Criminal Behavior and Topologies

Financial frauds as well as identify theft are conducted by the hackers to evolve into serious threats to the financial services industry and any organization (Vadza, 2011). According to computer crime and security survey, these two are the world’s most cyber crime threat. Most of the organizations are benefited from understanding the different computer criminal behaviour and topologies (Farrington & Ttofi, 2014). From there understanding, the organization should avoid the disclosing of any information to any unknown sites as well as they should keep the back up of their important files such that there is no chance of suffering any data loss in case of hacking (Hörnle, 2012). The company should avoid sending the credit card number to any site that is not safe. The organization must use the latest as well as updated antivirus to prevent their computer’s data against the virus attacks; and use a security programme to give control over cookies (Patel, 2012). An organization should ensure a security awareness that prevent the attack and make the attackers think twice before committing any cyber crime (Hua & Haughton, 2012).

Psychological screening is an extreme step that should be done before the hiring of employees in an organization (Sahu, Maheshwari & Sahu, 2015). Most of the organizations are benefited by the further research in psychological profiling of the hackers (Kumar & Mittal, 2012). Therefore, modelling behaviour can be assisted and it is predictive in nature; providing a criminal justice system as well as information technology industry to prevent the unauthorized use of data (Payne & Hollin, 2014).  Although, various qualitative data exist to build the profile of the individuals that may fit the psychological model of the cyber crime (McIntyre, 2014).

Conclusion

The advancement of technology such as Internet provides both the individuals as well as organizations with a mean to commit crimes; therefore millions of people are affected by online crime every day. The computer crime is becoming one of the most threatening crimes for both law enforcement as well as the public. These crimes are hate crimes, internet fraud, thefts of credit card account, and telemarketing fraud, these are measured to be computer or cyber crimes when the illegal actions are to be committed throughout using of both computer and internet. Online assault is the crime that involves the crime of harassment, threats of violence etc. Online fraud or theft is the use of dishonesty as well as violate of confidence online to profit financially. Online intrusion involves using of Internet to damage other individual’s computer programs. Therefore, the organization should avoid the disclosing of any information to any unknown sites as well as they should keep the back up of their important files such that the individual may not suffer from any data loss in case of hacking.

Analysis of Benefits for Organizations in Understanding Computer Criminal Behaviors and Topologies

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