Computer Crime - Definitions

DEFINITIONS

Computer crime includes traditional criminal acts committed with a computer, as well as new offenses that lack any parallels with non-computer crimes. The diversity of offenses renders any narrow definition unworkable. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) broadly defines computer crimes as "any violations of criminal law that involve a knowledge of computer technology for their perpetration, investigation, or prosecution." Accurate statistics on the extent of this phenomenon have proven to be elusive because of the difficulty in adequately defining computer crimes. The statistics also are untrustworthy due to victims' failure to report incidents. The aggregate annual losses to businesses and governments are estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

Some of the most notorious computer crimes have involved computer viruses, such as the Melissa virus that appeared on the Internet in March 1999 and infected systems in the United States and Europe, and the February 2000 distributed denial of service (DDS) attacks on several leading commercial Web sites including Yahoo!, E*Trade, Amazon.com, and eBay.

Cyber-crimes are frequently grouped into three categories. The first are those in which the computer comprises the "object" of a crime and in which the perpetrator targets the computer itself. This includes theft of computer processor time and computerized services. The second category involves those in which the computer forms the "subject" of a crime, either as the physical site of the offense or as the source of some form of loss or damage. This category includes viruses and related attacks. Finally, the third category includes those in which the computer serves as the "instrument" used to commit traditional crimes in cyberspace. This encompasses offenses like cyber-fraud, online harassment, and child pornography.

Though teenage hackers and underage, e-fraud perpetrators have captured headlines, no "typical" cyber-criminal exists. Perpetrators also commit cyber-crimes for a variety of reasons. Motives range from a desire to showcase technical expertise, to exposing vulnerabilities in computer security systems, retaliating against former employers, or sabotaging government computer systems.