Cybercrime: Vandalizing the Information Society

Abstract

Abstract. Cybercrime has received significant coverage in recent years, with the media, law enforcers, and governments all working to bring the issue to our attention. This paper begins by presenting an overview of the problem, considering the scope and scale of reported incidents. From this, a series of common attack types are considered (focusing upon website defacement, denial of service and malware), with specific emphasis upon the potential for these to be automated and mounted by novices. Leading on from this, the problem of policing cybercrime is considered, with attention to the need for suitable legislation, and appropriate resourcing of law enforcers. It is concluded that that cybercrime is an inevitable downside of the information society, and that organizations and individuals consequently have a stake in ensuring their own protection.

Defacing the Map: Cartographic Vandalism in the Digital Commons

“…The most common form of cybercrime is the defacement of websites, often for satirical or playful purposes (Furnell, 2002). Williams (2004) defined the term 'online vandalism' to refer to deviant behaviour in online communities, particularly the defacement of digital artifacts built collaboratively, often as part of cyber-bullying.…”

Hacker Taggers: A new type of hackers

“…This code defines the main key areas as (Levy 1984 During the 1980's, a brief text entitled The Conscience of a Hacker, which is more widely known and refereed to as the Hacker Manifesto, was published. This was written in 1986 by a hacker who operated under the pseudonym of the 'The Mentor' (Furnell 2002). The Hacker Manifesto puts forward an individual's rationale for the actions and motivation of Hackers (Furnell et al 1999) and is one of the few examples of a hacker justifying their being and actions.…”

“…As more organisations rely on the Internet and other networked systems to conduct their business activities the greater the potential for loss or damage to organisational systems (Furnell 2002).…”

Mastering Computer Forensics

“…Evidence that computer and Internet crime incidences continue to in increase is confirmed in publications such as the annual Computer Security Institute report. (Powers, 2002) Computer crime is on the increase but there are indications that some public perception of malicious abuse may be inflated . Furnell, (2002) discusses how some figures relate to reported incidents from one particular set of surveys and that the true level of computer crime may be much higher because much is not reported due to risk of undesirable consequences; bad publicity, legal liability, loss of custom.…”

“…Also financial loss is only one type of impact. Others include; disruption of service, loss of data, damage of reputation and these are difficult to quantify and could be more significant (Furnell, 2002). …”