Running Head: CATEGORIES OF COMPUTER CRIME

Categories of Computer Crime
Daniel Lindsey
Strayer University

Author Note
This paper was prepared for Information Technology in Criminal Justice, taught by Prof. Ulysses Weakley.
ABSTRACT
This research paper will discuss in detail the four common categories of computer crimes and provide at least one example for each. Explain which of these categories of computer crimes presents the greatest overall threat at the present time and why I perceive this to be the case. In conclusion, I will address what the U.S. government, court systems, and law enforcement agencies can do better to counteract this specific category of computer crime.

Categories of Computer Crime
Before the Internet, criminals had to go through trash or snatch their mail to steal their personal information. Now everything is available online, criminals also use the Internet to steal people's identities, hack into their accounts, deceive them into revealing the information, or infect their devices with malware.
Computer crimes are criminal actions that involve using a computer and network to increase unauthorized access with the plan of changing, damaging computer data and deleting. The four common categories of computer crimes are infrastructure attacks, technological facilitation, information attacks, and promotion. To simply these topics of computer crimes above I will explain through the following of crimes; hacking, phishing, computer viruses and identify theft. Infrastructure attacks are the important base or structure. It supports a society and its ability to sustain and accommodate its members. This part of the infrastructure is considered mission critical to any organization and society that could possibly be involved in these computer crimes. Critical infrastructure within our community can be defined as services, facilities and installations that provide security care and help to ensure we are safe and functioning. As far as, community infrastructure there are critical areas that need to be carefully watched and monitored. For example, information technology and data transmission, banking and finance, water supplies, transportation including air, water, rail, highway and pipeline, law enforcement and other emergency services. In order to understand what terrorist are thinking and attacks they plan on making you need to understand the intent or what motivated them to want to commit such crimes. Hacking is somebody who looks and destroys weaknesses in a computer system or computer network. Hackers are usually excited by many things that motivate them to perform these sorts of crimes. Some hackers are often referred to as the computer underground and are now a known community. Phishing usually comes about when consumer receives an e-mail which appears to originate from a financial institution, government agency, or other well-known entities. An example of the message describes an urgent reason you must verify or re-submit personal or confidential information by clicking on a link embedded in the message. The provided link appears to be the web site of the financial institution, government agency or other well-known company, but in phishing scams, the web site belongs to the scammer. Once inside the fraudulent web site, the consumer may be asked to provide social security numbers, account numbers, passwords or other information used to identify the consumer, such as the maiden name of the consumer's mother or the consumer's place of birth. When the consumer provides the information, those perpetrating the fraud can begin to access consumer accounts or assume the person's identity. It’s that easy for those criminals out there. So, you have to be safe at all times about what you are opening, emailing and information you are providing to strangers. Computer viruses can be explained as a program or piece of code