Computer Crime Technology

However, they have also provided opportunities for computer criminals. As an illegal activity, computer crime is growing at a higher rate not only in the United States but the whole world (Bequai, 1996). Computer crimes cause a significant disadvantage to organizations as those who commit the crime are usually foreigners. The central drive behind computer crimes is money, desire for a challenge, and revenge. In an attempt to combat these crimes, various technologies exist; however, this paper examines the old technologies that people used to fight computer crimes in the past. Hacking involves trespassing on peoples’ computers and infiltrates online networks to manipulate, illegally download confidential data, and steal identities to commit fraudulent activities (Venkatraman, 1997). Computer hacking is the most familiar type of computer crimes as it records the highest profile criminals.

Vankantraman concedes that hacking began in the 1970s when most hackers had a drive to challenge themselves into an organization’s system and prove their abilities (1997). Industrial espionage involves stealing research, customer lists, and sales-know-how of a company. Most industrial espionage criminals obtain information about organizations, government, and institution for a fee in what they term as broking. People had to make sure that they kept their passwords a secret, and to prevent other people from guessing their passwords; they used a mix of different characters such as numbers and letters which went up to a total of eight characters. The use of passwords allowed only the computer users to have access to information in the system and it prevented outsiders form accessing it.