Impacts Of Computer Hacking At The National, Local, And Individual Levels
As internet usage is growing, so is the world coming closer. The World Wide Web brings the world closer making it a very small place for all its users. Sadly, something really good often at times comes with some problems. Likewise, the World Wide Web has also come with some problems, which is cybercrimes. The law and enforcement officers have been working a great deal to tackle this issue but its keeps growing at a steady state. Many people are also falling victims of cybercrimes such as hacking, identity theft and also malicious software.
Cybercrime basically any crime that is committed that involves a network of a computer. In some cases of cybercrimes, the computer or network might be used to commit a crime or in some cases the while in some cases, the computer might be a target of the crime (Wall,2003).
There are several types of cybercrimes. These include; computer viruses where one creates a computer virus and disseminates it. Another type of a cybercrime is cyberstalking. A person may use electronics or the internet to stalk or harass an individual or an organization. Another form is identity theft where one may steal a person’s identity and pretend to be that person so as to access some information and also access some financial resources(Wall,2003).
In this text, we are going to look at one type of a cybercrime. Computer hacking is a type of cybercrime where a hacker involves him/herself in the modification of the computer software and hardware so as to achieve a certain goal that it was not originally created to perform(Bossler, & Burruss, 2011). Computer hacking is mainly done by young adults and also teenagers. A hacker is a person who is involved in computer hacking and they are mostly very good at computer programming. They enjoy learning about how a computer works. They consider this as an “art” form. They usually see this as a way of expressing their skills and abilities. A number of hackers have taught themselves to do this mainly through interests in computers.
Computer hacking can be used by individuals for some beneficial purposes. Since most of the hackers are self-taught prodigies, they get the chance to be hired by the companies and organization to be part of their technical staffs. They showcase their capabilities in the organization so as to help the company identify any flaws in their systems and find a quick remedy. In this type of cybercrime, the individual helps the organization in preventing the identity theft and also prevent any form of serious computer-related crimes in the organization (Bossler, & Burruss, 2011).
On an individual level, computer hacking can lead to loss of an individual’s life savings and case their entire financial status to be ruined for quite a long time. Someone can have bank accounts hacked and thus their credit history will be ruined and it may take quite a long time to get it back to their previous state (Bossler,& Burruss, 2011). In the previous years, a hacker could create viruses for the fun of it but nowadays they create these viruses in order to make money and also gain the financial info.
A negative impact on the local level might involve a situation where a company’s reputation and the brand image may be spoilt. This may be through the introduction of false information or services that a company might not be offering. This may also lead to disruption in the company’s services and also interfere with the opportunity costs. It may also lead to employment disruptions. The disruptions caused in the company may also lead to compensatory payments to customers and penalties to the company(Broadhurst, 2006). This is mainly for consequential loss and any inconveniences that are caused and also the contractual compensations for the delays that might have been caused due to the miscommunications.
In some serious cases, the local companies might have their corporate information stolen and sold to other competitors. In this cases, one may have their company fail completelyif the issue is not discovered and handled fast. The company will thus have to go an extra mile and incur costs of insurance and also the cost of counter measures. They may also need to spend a fortune to invest on the security software so as to monitor regularly any intrusion attempts.
Cybercrimes has an impact at the national level. In this case, computer hacking can impact a nation in that their sensitive data and their intellectual property may be interfered with. The nation might also face loss of trade and also loss of competitiveness. This might happen especially when the national website has been hacked into and their reputation spoiled. The nation might also face data theft cases where their crucial security information or strategies set in the country might be accessed tampered with or even taken to be used in other countries(Broadhurst, 2006). They may also use their security information to fight against them as they have an idea of their plans. In this case, the nation will incur very high costs of mitigation strategies that have to be set to counteract the issue and also the cost of recovery from the cyber-attacks.
Cybercrime is posing a very great impact to the law and enforcement. This is because the hacker or every person involved in cybercrime is upgrading every day in their techniques. This has forced the law enforcement to reset their strategies in handling this issue. They have been forced to employ more Information Technology experts to work on the cases of cybercrimes especially at the national levels (Yar,2005).
Before handling any cybercrime issue, the law enforcers need to know the identity of the person so that they may know who they are dealing with before they can make an arrest. This has proved to be very difficult as there are so many ways of hiding a person identity(Wall,2004). There are so many ways in which a person can mask their identity by routing the traffic through various servers thus tracking down the individual becomes quite problematic.
The nature of the evidence handled in by the officers makes it harder to deal with the crime. This is because the evidence is composed of some light pulses, numbers represented by magnetization and some radio signals which can easily be changed or even erased (Broadhurst, 2006). This makes it very hard to handle.
Despite the fact that cybercrimes have a great impact on and individual when caught, so many people are not frightened by this. In most countries, a person involved in cybercrime can face up to 20 years jail term. It has however been so difficult to get people involved in this type of crime due to consequent change in technology.
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