Individual Blog Assignment #3

Computer crime.

Wikipedia defines computer crime as: “criminal activity where a computer or network is the source, tool, target, or place of a crime. These categories are not exclusive and many activities can be characterized as falling in one or more category. Computer crime can broadly be defined as criminal activity involving an information technology infrastructure, including illegal access, interception, data interference, systems interference (interfering with the functioning of a computer system by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering or suppressing computer data), misuse of devices, forgery (ID theft), and electronic fraud.”
One example where computers are targets of computer crime is a virtual information time bomb. It is computer code programmed to realize a specific task at a predetermined time. It can be used to destroy all the information in a computer or a whole network. In 1996, Tim Lloyd, an ex-employee, left a virtually activated information bomb in his company’s codes, which finally detonated July 31 of that same year destroying the company's manufacturing programs and network. Another example is the so called denial-of-service attack. It is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. It generally consists of a person or persons trying to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning temporarily or indefinitely. The most common method of attack involves saturating the victim with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond or will do it very slowly. Most mayor Internet names were victims, including Yahoo and Microsoft.
An example of a computer being used as instruments of crime is phishing. Phishing is an attempt to illegally acquire sensitive information, such as user names, passwords and credit card or banking information by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. EBay and Paypal and banks are common targets. It is typically carried out by email or instant messaging and often directs users to enter details at a website.
Another example of a computer being used as instruments of crime is the illegal access to a computer resource. It is also called hacking. One of the most famous hackers is Jonathan Jones. He became the first juvenile to be sent to prison for hacking. He installed a backdoor into a Defense Threat Reduction Agency server. It enabled him to view sensitive emails and capture employee user names and passwords. He also cracked into NASA computers, stealing software worth approximately $1.7 million.

For a video on the latest Internet security treats click on the link. http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1350179&fr=yfp-t-501