Cybercrime is a big business. It is estimated that cybercrime could reach up to $10.5 trillion in the next two years. Cybercrime is seen on the rise in national agendas, the corporate world, international organisations, and everywhere else.
Cybercrime has been successfully creating a lot of chaos in the global economy, national security, individual interest, and political stability.
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a fundamental change in the way we work. Our growing dependence on the internet and networked technologies can be considered the biggest reason contributing to the growth of cybercrimes. On today’s date, the world is more connected digitally. And, there are criminals all over the globe taking advantage of this rapid online transformation by targeting the defects or loopholes in online systems, networks, and infrastructure.
Cybercrimes do not know any state or national borders. However, there are a lot of ways in which cybercrimes vary from country to country. The global growth of cybercrimes has often challenged the effectiveness of national and international laws & regulations, and law enforcement.
What is cybercrime?
In simple terms, we can define cybercrime as a criminal activity that happens through a computer, network, or networked device. Most of the cybercrimes are carried out with the motive to gain profit and other benefits for cybercriminals or scammers.
Cybercrimes can be of different types. Some are carried out against computers or devices to damage them completely. On the other hand, various others use computer systems or networks to spread illegal stuff, malware, pictures, videos, or other things.
The major effect of cybercrime is often financial. It usually includes activities such as malware attacks, internet fraud, identity stealing, stealing of financial details, etc.
Types of cybercrimes
Cybercrimes come in various types. The list of crimes that we are sharing here does not include them all, it is just a review of the common cyber crimes happening around frequently.
Identity stealing: Identity stealing, commonly known as identity theft is one of the worst cyber crimes which is rapidly on the rise in this generation. Identity stealing is all about stealing someone’s identity to perform illegal activities. In identity theft cases, the criminal might steal your identity and use your details such as name, social security information, aadhar details, etc to access various services in your name, commit some fraud or crime, steal property, etc. This type of cybercrime is often committed to defaming enemies.
Cyberstalking: Cyberstalking is the other name for cyberbullying. It can be described as a crime in which a person sitting behind the other end of a screen tries to mentally harass a person or stalk them digitally at every point.
Cyberstalking cases are rising with the rise of social media platforms and dating apps.
Online frauds or scams: This is the type of cybercrime that enables fraudsters to provide services, rewards, and products to the victim.
Online scams include fake gift cards or coupons, online gambling scams, e-ticket scams, and many more.
Cyber Espionage: It is a type of cybercrime where a criminal hacks a network system to gain access to various confidential information of an organization. Here, criminals are driven to a profit or an ideology.
Effects of Cyber Crimes on Society
Cybercrimes are of numerous forms starting from online scams to serious threats like terrorism. But no matter what it is, the impact of cybercrime is often very harmful to society.
Let us now check out how cybercrime affects society in various ways.
Effects of Cybercrime on Business
We can better understand this with an example. Suppose an e-commerce business collects the card details of their customers when the customer makes an online payment. Commonly, a brand would have millions of customers. And, most customers in today’s date make payments using debit cards, credit cards, UPI, and other digital methods. This shows that the brand has successfully established a huge online customer database. So the company needs to take adequate measures to secure and encrypt its customers’ confidential financial information. Otherwise, cybercriminals can take advantage of the minor loopholes and hack into internal systems. These hackers will be able to use the customers’ card information and track it back to their bank accounts and steal money.
Effects of Cybercrime on Individuals
Cybercrimes such as cyberbullying, identity theft, stalking, etc are mostly related to individuals. It majorly includes blackmailing internet users by threatening them to spread false information. In such situations, the impact of cybercrimes is not limited to just financial loss. It may lead to such situations where a victim might go into depression and even attempt suicide. Cybercrimes on individuals occur mostly with the motive to take revenge. Whenever an individual feels that they are being a victim of cybercrime, the best choice is to hire a detective agency in Jaipur and let them handle the situation.
Effects of Cybercrime on Infrastructure
Cyberterrorism even poses a significant threat to society in terms of infrastructure. Cybercriminals often break into network systems that control infrastructures like air traffic control and put millions of lives in danger. The more technologically developed a nation is, the higher the rate of cyberterrorism risk it possesses.
Nowadays, these criminals are also targeting healthcare websites. They can expose the confidential data of the patients and hospital staff. Cybercrimes related to healthcare websites can range from malware to denial–of–service. Cybercrimes in the healthcare industry can lead to consequences that surpass financial losses. These crimes can put the lives of the patients at risk.
The requirement of international rules to prevent the global growth of cybercrime
Cybercriminals are making fortunes. With the advancement in technology, even cybercrimes are on the rise. And, they are very hard to stop in a precise way due to their distributed nature. The famous Cobalt Cybercrime gang committed a cybercrime in 2018, attacking over 100 financial organisations in 40 countries taking over $11 million per attack.
International rules and regulations have become a necessity to prevent the global growth of cybercrime because, without major global cooperation or huge structural changes to the internet, victims cannot do a lot of things to prevent cybercrimes. The world needs excellent international rules which are being enforced properly. We also require a more expensive approach that ensures cybersecurity.