A computer crime is any illegal act that involves the computer either as the target of the crime (a computer-related crime, CRC) or as a tool used to commit the crime (a computer-assisted crime, CAC).
- Identity Theft: the crime of impersonation – a form of fraud where someone assumes another person’s identity, typically to access resources or credit in that person’s name.
- Phishing: the criminally fraudulent process of acquiring sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in electronic communication.
- Software piracy: the illegal (unauthorized) reproduction of copyrighted or patented software for personal use, sale or free distribution – the most widely practiced computer crime.
- Malware Attacks: include but are not limited to viruses, worms, Trojan horses, spyware and logic bombs.
- Virus: a program that copies itself and infects a computer, destroying files and disrupting operation; it spreads when its host (some executable code) is taken to a target computer.
- Worm: a self-replicating malicious program that uses a network to send copies of itself to other computers, without needing to attach to an existing program – it causes harm by consuming bandwidth.
- Trojan horse: malware that appears to perform a desirable function but instead facilitates unauthorized access; once installed, a hacker may access the system remotely.
- Spyware: monitors a user’s activity without their knowledge and reports it to a central location, ranging from benign (displaying ads) to malicious (stealing passwords).
- Logic bomb: also called slag code – malicious code secretly inserted into existing software, lying dormant until triggered by a specific event, date or time.
- Software Key loggers: record keystrokes to secretly monitor or maliciously use information typed on a keyboard, including messages, emails and passwords.
- Denial or Degradation of Service (DoS) Attack: puts a system out of action by overloading it with data it was never prepared to handle, making it unavailable to intended users.
- Social Engineering: a non-technical intrusion relying on human interaction, tricking people into breaking normal security procedures by exploiting helpfulness or weaknesses.
- Cyber stalking / Cyber bullying: harassing a victim using electronic communication such as email or instant messaging – unlike ordinary spam, a cyber-stalker targets a specific victim with threatening messages.
- Cyber terrorism: an act of terrorism committed through cyberspace or computer resources, e.g. propaganda online threatening attacks during holidays.
- Spamming: sending unwanted bulk email for commercial purposes.
Other types of computer crime include scamming, theft of computer equipment, pharming, spoofing and phreaking.
