Although an act of cyberterrorism has yet to occur, officials and scholars continuously study the possibilities of such an attack. As our physical and virtual worlds continue to intertwine the risk of such an event rapidly increases. Everything from our transportation systems to pharmaceutical manufacturing are computer controlled. The closest the world has come to an act of cyberterrorism was in 2000. Known as the Maroochy Shire case in Queensland, Australia was committed by Vitek Boden. Boden was an engineer for Pacific Paradise, a sewage pumping in Australia. He was able to successful hack into a control system modifying the operations and dumping millions of litres of raw sewage into the local waterways. Boden’s motivation was the only reason the act was not classified as cyberterrorism was his motivation. It was personal rather than political or religious in nature (Sharp Parker, 2009). The only reason this wasn’t the first act of cyberterrorism was motivation. As companies invest in upgrading their technological capabilities, they too need to invest in security structure to protect their systems and the public from threats of terrorism. Our government must also decide how to address public safety in regards to cyberterrorism. On September 11th, 2001 America was reminded how vulnerable we are when it comes to acts of terrorism. The sheer complexity and varying design of attacks often makes it very difficult to create a catch-all defense in fighting terrorism. To improve the disruption of terrorist activities by government agencies in the United States many laws needed to be updated to include the latest areas of electronic communications.
Multi-platform computer worms are a tool that computer hackers use to infect computers to gain control access. Computer worms are a dangerous virus because they are self-replicating, meaning that they multiply themselves and spread onto other computer networks seeking a lapse in internet security. Computer worms do not need to attach themselves onto an existing computer program to gain access to the victim computer files. The computer worm was created on accident by a Cornell student named Robert Morris; he was seeking a way of managing the internet in 1988. “Morris had no malicious intent, but a bug in his program caused many of the computers the worm landed on to crash. … but worms had come of age and have since evolved into an effective way of attacking systems connected to the internet” (Barwise). Today, hackers use the Morris worm to infect computers. “Five men believed to be responsible for spreading a notorious computer worm on Facebook and other social networks — and pocketing several million dollars from online schemes — are hiding in plain sight in St. Petersburg, Russia …” (Richmond). Since the good intended creation of the worm it has only been used maliciously as a computer virus by money seeking computer hackers such as the Koobface gang in Russia.
Determining the reasons for this controversy is the best way to prevent Computer Crime situations from occurring in the future. “Computer Crime started in 1971 known as the first ever recorded attack when John Draper realized that a toy whistle in a cereal box could make the 2600-hertz tone which in that time frame was required to produce a free long-distance call” (Migga Kigga, 407). Then, later after many hacking incidents in 1988 a guy named Robert T. Morris Jr., who graduated from Cornell University launched a self-replicating worm on the governments ARPANET to test the effects on the system. But as it turns out the worm gets much more serve and spreads to 6,000 network computers which ended up clogging the government and as a resultant the University systems. Morris was then dismissed from Cornell, sentenced three years of prohibition and fined 10,000 dollars (Migga Kigga, 408). Nowadays your computer or any electronic devices are never safe from this crime because in 2004 there was an investigatio...
now. Some Hackers create a program called a worm. A worm is a piece of
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, over the past few years, have worked diligently monitoring and combatting criminal behavior occurring on the Internet. To do this, they have joined forces with the National White Collar Crime Center and formed an organization known as the IC3. The IC3 was developed in 2000 with its purpose of combating Internet crimes. This organization accepts criminal complaints that occur on the Internet. The IC3 conducts investigations into the complaints and with sufficient evidence or cause, refers them to state, local, federal or international law enforcement agencies for further investigations. The IC3 mission is to “serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cybercrime.” (IC3, n.d.).
Robert Moore’s Cybercrime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime is an informative text that supplies the reader with basic understandable knowledge of increasing cybercrimes and strategies that law enforcement are taking in order to catch cyber criminals. Moore’s work has a total of thirteen chapters that are full of information that help the reader better understand the different cybercrime threats such as, hacking, identity theft, child pornography, and financial fraud. Moore also goes into detail on different law enforcement tactics that help catch cyber criminals such as, the seizing of digital evidence, executing search warrants for digital evidence, computer forensics, and cybercriminology. Moore’s main goal is to help the reader grasp a better understanding of cybercrime that faces the world today. Through reading this book, I can validly say that Moore’s thorough work, perspectives, and examples helped me better understand high-technology computer crime and investigative strategies as well.
...ons he was charged millions of dollars and up to 35 years in prison. It is my belief that the Computer and Abuse act is too broad and outdated to properly address the criminal sanctions of ever evolving technological advancements. Additionally in light of the presence political hactivists groups like Anonymous, any misuse of justice requires established oversight. It is a sad day when the government loses sight of justice and has to be reminded by politically motivated hackers.
The history of cybercrime goes back to 1971 and the first computer virus called the Creeper which was created by Bob H. Thomas, who was a BBN engineer (Dalakov, Meltzer, and Phillips). BBN which stands for Bolt, Beranek and Newman, is now Raytheon BBN Technologies (“About”, Dalakov). A computer virus is a program that is created to cause damage to a computer or perform other malicious acts (204). The Creeper virus was designed to infect the ARPANET network. The ARPANET, which stands for Advance Research Projects Agency was set up by the U.S. Government as an agency in 1969 to provide a network of computers that would connect various academic and research organizations; it was the predecessor of the Internet (“Internet”, Morley, and Parker).
"Lowe's Hacker Sentenced." Crime Research. FBI Associated Press, 17 Dec. 2004. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.
The technological revolution has taken full swing. If a business doesn't have some form of e-commerce, or if a person does not have some form of an e-mail address, they are seen as living in the stone age. This new world of virtual life, where with the click of a button a person can travel millions of miles in a few seconds, millions of new opportunities have arisen. However, someone has to always ruin the good things in life. Very similar to Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," where the second thing built in a Utopia was a prison, the advent of computer crime is only becoming more prevelant everyday. The whole idea of a computer crime is rather absurd indeed. Really, who wants to go around spray painting on computers anyway? Though the definition of computer crime varies from source to source, the most common being," any illegal act which oinvolves a computer system" ( "What is a computer..." p.1). This holds true even if the computer contains something as simple as a threatening e-mail. Computer crime in nature ranges from relatively small things such as software piracy to magnificent crimes like fraud.