Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 1

Cyber Crime
A Study of Online Predators
Amber Ellis
Ivy Tech Community College

CRIM 101
David De La Cruz
December 4, 2012

Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 2
I have chosen to my term paper on Cyber Crime. I chose this topic because I myself have been a victim of this malicious crime in the past. With knowledge I can warn others. Cybercrime can only be described as illegal activity committed on the Internet. I thought it would be good for me to make myself aware of all the research behind this topic so that I will not be a victim again. Cybercrime is a very serious offense and a lot of people do not even realize they have been a victim of it.
Cybercrime is no laughing matter. Criminal activities in cyberspace are on the rise. (National Research Council, (NRC), 1991) Computers today are being misused for illegal activities like e-mail espionage, credit card fraud, spams, and software piracy and so on, which invade our privacy and offend our senses. The internet, along with its advantages, has also exposed us to security risks that come with connecting to a large network. Cybercrimes can basically be divided into three categories: Cybercrimes against persons, cybercrimes against property and cybercrimes against the government. As cases of cybercrimes grow, there is a growing need to prevent them. Cyberspace belongs to everyone. Cybercrime is a menace that has to be tackled effectively not only by the official but also by the users by co-operating with the law. Cybercrime is one of the fastest growing areas of crime. More and more criminals are exploiting the speed, convenience and anonymity that modern technologies offer in order to commit a diverse range of criminal activities. These include attacks against computer data and systems, identity theft, the distribution of child sexual abuse images, internet auction fraud, the penetration of online financial services, as well as the deployment of viruses, Botnets, and various email scams such as phishing.( INTERPOL 2012) The global nature of the Internet a
Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 3 allowed criminals to commit almost any illegal activity anywhere in the world, making it essential for all countries to adapt their domestic offline controls to cover crimes carried out in cyberspace. The internet, along with its advantages, has also exposed us to security risks that come with connecting to a large network. Here are a few examples of the types of Cybercrime:
I. Financial Claims:
• This would include cheating, credit card frauds, money laundering etc.
II. Cyber Pornography:
• This would include pornographic websites; pornographic magazines produced using computer and the Internet (to down load and transmit pornographic pictures, photos, writings etc.)
III. Sale of illegal articles: • This would include sale of narcotics, weapons and wildlife etc., by posting information on websites, bulletin boards or simply by using e-mail communications.
IV. Online gambling:
• There are millions of websites; all hosted on servers abroad, that offer online gambling. In fact, it is believed that many of these websites are actually fronts for money laundering.
In the past, cybercrime has been committed by individuals or small groups of individuals. However, we are now seeing an emerging trend with traditional organized crime syndicates and
Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 4 criminally minded technology professionals working together and pooling their resources and expertise. This approach has been very effective for the criminals involved. In 2007 and 2008 the cost of cybercrime worldwide was estimated at approximately USD 8 billion. As for corporate cyber espionage, cyber criminals have stolen intellectual property from businesses worldwide worth up to USD 1 trillion. Even more distressing and difficult to combat is the fact that some in the media portray the computer criminal as a modern day Robin Hood. Nothing could be further from the truth. ( cybercitizenship.org) Many smaller businesses find themselves vulnerable to cyber thieves, mainly because they have limited budgets for Web security and few or no technology experts on staff. "Small businesses feel like they're immune from cybercrime, and they're wrong. They are absolutely on the list of potential targets of cybercriminals," said Larry Ponemon, chairman of the Ponemon Institute, a privacy think tank in Traverse City, Mich. The average U.S. data breach cost companies $194 per compromised record last year, he added. About 72% of the 855 data breaches world-wide analyzed last year by Verizon Communications Inc. The figures included investigations conducted by Verizon's team, as well as data-breach investigations by various law-enforcement groups around the globe, including the U.S. Secret Service and the Australian Federal Police. Courts often find banks aren't liable in cybercrime cases, in which a business client's computer systems were breached, according to George Tubin, senior security strategist for Trusteer Inc., a provider of cybercrime prevention technology in Boston. He said many cases brought by small-business owners after their business accounts have been hacked are being settled out of court. Cyber security experts say small-business owners need to do more to protect their firms from high-tech thieves than rely on standard security

Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 5 products. In conclusion, Cybercrime is a fast growing problem in today’s world of technology. We as Parents, teachers, non-profits, government, and industry have been working hard to protect kids online. However, we also need to think about protecting the Internet from kids who might abuse it. Kids might not even realize that what they are doing is illegal. Still other kids might find themselves hanging out online with skilled hackers who share hacking tools with them and encourage them to do inappropriate things online. Its annual Norton Cybercrime Report said the average UAE victim suffered direct financial losses of $283. The global study is based on self-reported experiences of more than 13,000 adults across 24 countries and calculated the direct costs associated with global consumer cybercrime at $110bn over the past 12 months. It said every second, 18 adults become a victim of cybercrime, resulting in more than 1.5m cybercrime victims each day on a global level. In the past twelve months, an estimated 556m adults across the world experienced cybercrime, more than the entire population of the European Union. The report said in the UAE, 46% of the country's internet users have fallen victim to cybercrime on social networking platforms. It added that 31% of adults have been a victim of social or mobile cybercrime in the past twelve months in the UAE compared to 21% globally. Worldwide, 15% of social network users reported someone had hacked into their profile and pretended to be them. One in 10 social network users said they'd fallen victim to a scam or fake link on social network platforms. "Cybercriminals are changing their tactics to target fast growing mobile platforms and social networks where consumers are less aware of security risks," said Marian Merritt, Norton internet safety advocate. "This year's results show that nearly half of internet users believe that unless their computer crashes or malfunctions, they're not100%

Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 6 sure they've fallen victim to such an attack." Earlier this year, the central bank of the UAE said it had fended off an onslaught from hackers trying to bring down its website. Israeli hackers were apparently behind the attack, having vowed to target various state-linked websites in Saudi Arabia and the UAE in revenge for a wave of credit card code thefts by a hacker who claimed to be operating out of Saudi Arabia. The websites of Israeli institutions have also been targeted. The Stop Online Piracy Act (otherwise known as "SOPA") would have been the most threatening act of legislation to the global Internet to date had it passed. Along with the PROTECT-IP ("PIPA") and OPEN acts, which ran through the Senate, these bills in singular and collectively would have threatened the very existence of the open Web as we know it. SOPA alone would have allowed Web sites to be shuttered, no matter where they are in the world, by blocking them at server level and starving them of oxygen. Any site even to have allegedly breached copyright could be effectively shut down by the U.S. government with little oversight or process of appeal. Google-owned YouTube, for instance, could have fallen foul of the law if someone uploaded a copyright infringing video, leading to a widespread site block. The Internet as a collective rallied around and protested in a way that had never been tested or tried before. Many major Web sites shut their doors for 12 or 24 hours during 'Black Wednesday' to protest the bill. More than 75,000 Web sites blacked out, including Wikipedia and Google. Days later, it was shelved by the U.S. House of Representatives and ultimately the geeks 'won.' However, the White House found itself on the right side of the powerful Internet community after it said it would veto any such bill should it pass along the President's desk. With cybercriminals a greater threat to small businesses than ever before, more entrepreneurs like Lloyd Keilson are left asking

Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 7 themselves who is to blame for hacking attacks that drain their business accounts. In May, Lifestyle Forms & Displays Inc., a mannequin maker and importer led by the 65-year-old Mr. Keilson, had $1.2 million wiped out of its bank accounts in just hours through online transactions. The theft from the Brooklyn, N.Y., company, which has about 100 employees, wasn't an isolated incident. About a year ago, the Philippines pushed through a completely unneeded anti-counterfeiting bill at the behest of the WIPO (itself working at the behest of the US government). Despite the evidence that counterfeiting isn't a big problem, the bill was pushed through and defended with a bit of doublespeak by the Philippines IP office, who claimed that the bill had nothing to do with various corporate interests applying pressure... except for the ones that have "lost a lot of profits due to piracy." To quote Glyn Moody: "Indeed.” The Filipino government has now moved past that, enacting a so-called Cybercrime Prevention Act that goes well beyond dealing with hackers and fraudsters. As Mike pointed out earlier, the new law contained some very broad wording that outlawed "cybersex," subjecting violators to some very harsh punishments (up to six years in jail and fines up to $25,000). That, in and of itself, would be worrying. But the law goes even further, recasting former civil offenses as criminal acts. As Patrick Villavicencio at InterAksyon points out, the legislation bears a lot of resemblance to the failed SOPA/PIPA bills, aiming at taking down file sharing rather than protecting citizens from online attacks. “What SOPA and PIPA aimed to do, the Cybercrime Law has done,”) Acero said, referring to the objective of the two bills to curb the rampant sharing and downloading of movie and music content online, as lobbied by firms in Hollywood. Under Section 6 of the law, all crimes “defined and penalized by the Revised Penal Code, as amended, and special laws” can be punishable under the Act if they
Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 8 are committed with, using, and through a computer system. Rather than infringement being a civil issue or a minor crime at best, the additional wording drags this activity under the heading "cybercrime," allowing law enforcement to collect real-time traffic data on file sharers. It also contains a "takedown clause" which gives the Department of Justice "sweeping powers to issue a block or restrict order against websites." This puts the power in the hands of content producers, allowing them to have a site blocked or taken down simply by filing a request with the DOJ. One needs only look at the average legacy industry "rogue site" list to see how this provision could result in the muting of several legitimate sites. There's nothing like having previously legal activity "grandfathered in" by new laws. Not only will Filipinos need to be very careful what they say going forward, they're also going to take a long look at anything they've said in the past. Not only that, but they're going to need to be very careful with their responses to anything others say that veers towards libel. ( Cushing, Tim 2012 Those who play a part in unwittingly or willfully encouraging the spread of libelous content shall be charged for abetting libel. That means the act of clicking the "Like" button of Facebook or re-tweeting posts on Twitter may be tagged as unlawful as well. What else? "Ironic, suggestive or metaphorical language" can be considered libelous. And the penalties are incredibly harsh. Online libel can be punished with a prison term of 12 years and a ₱1,000,000 fine, far harsher than the penalties for offline libel. Between the free speech limitations and the sweeping powers being granted to content creators and law enforcement, the new law is bad news all around. The DOJ will be meeting with stakeholders in October to ensure that the IRR (implementation of rules and regulations) "will not stifle basic human rights, not the
Running Head: Cyber Crime- Online Predators 9 least of which is internet users' freedom of speech and expression." Well, we'll see how that goes. Most "stakeholder" meetings seem to be long on listening to concerns but short on actually addressing them. ( Cushing, Tim 2012)

References
What is Cyber Crime? Retrieved October 23, 2012, from cybercitizenship.org.
Cybercrime. Retrieved October 23, 2012, from http://www.interpol.int/Crime areas/Cybercrime/Cybercrime
Babu, Maya & Grahakara Parishat, Mysore (October 11, 2004). What is Cybercrime? Retrieved from http:// http://www.crime-research.org/analytics/702
Cybercriminals Sniff out Vulnerable Firms. July 5, 2012. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/
Tuluc, Ana Maria, (2012) . Economic Processes Associated With the Cybercrime Industry. Economics, Management and Financial Markets 7.2, 179-184. Retrieved September 23, 2012 from http://search.proquest.com.allstate.libproxy.ivytech.edu..
Marcum, Catherine D., Higgins, George E., Tewksbury, Richard, (2011). Doing Time for Cybercrime: An examination of the Correlates of Sentence Length in the United States. International Journal of Cyber Criminology 5.2, 825-835. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.allstate.libproxy.ivytech.edu.
Price, Calli, (2010). Book Review of Cybercrime: An introduction to an Emerging Phenomenon. International Journal of Cyber Criminology 4.5, 643-644. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.allstate.libproxy.ivytech.edu.
Sambidge, Andy. Published by & © 2012 ITP Digital Ltd.
Whittaker, Zack. Zero Day | November 16, 2012
Cushing, Tim. Thursday, Oct 4th 2012. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121002/18033220575/philippines-new-cybercrime-law-aims-to-protect-citizens-going-after-filesharing-online-libel.shtml