Types of Computer Crimes

Computer crime can be divided into two main categories. The first and most important category is internal computer crime, which is simply that crime which is attributable to persons with authorized access to the computer system in question, such as an employee. Experts estimate that 80 percent of computer security breaches are internal. The second major category is external computer crime, which consists of unauthorized invasions of a system by outside persons, commonly known as hackers. With over 33 million desktop machines in use today, it is estimated that literally hundreds of thousands of people have now acquired the skills necessary to penetrate most systems.

These two main categories of computer crime can be further divided into two main subcategories: those crimes based on hardware and those crimes based on software. Hardware-based crimes are basically limited to electronic eavesdropping or wiretapping. Software-based crimes, on the other hand, are much more insidious and pervasive. This subcategory includes the notorious computer "virus". A virus is a tiny bit of software hidden within a larger, seemingly innocuous, program or "Tro

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etected by setting the computer clock to Christmas, New Year's, or April Fool's Day since numerous virusses are set to detonate at these times. Virusses can travel all over the world, and even benign virusses can have destructive results. A case in point is the "Pakistani Brain" which originated in the province of Punjab three years ago and recently turned up in a small Rhode Island newspaper's computer system. The original programmer, 20-year old Basit Farooq Alvi, says he wrote it only to warn off software pirates, not to destroy data, but apparently other later programmers gave the Brain a malicious twist so that now some versions of it wipe out data files. These versions have spread to Israel and Europe, as well as the U.S. Most large corporations now use mechanisms that isolate computer codes and reduce the virusses' chance to spread. However, these mechanisms do not make companies immune. Even computer giant IBM was infiltrated in December 1987. They were forced to shut down their 145-country electronic mail network after a West German student's self-replicating Christmas greeting spread from a European academic research network to IBM. Corporate concerns over computer security continue to mount as more companie
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