4 Core Element of Cyber Crime

Hi all, today we would like to share about the 4 Core Elements of Cyber Crime.

A cyber-crime is committed even without physical contact.

A cyber-criminal can commit crime even without any physical contact with the victims. Anyone, especially children, can become a victim of cyber-crimes. Photos, videos or anything that are uploaded by online users can be edited and transformed into something which is inappropriate, or even offensive. For example, a cyber-criminal could use any material (for eg: your photo) found on the internet (especially social media) to create or edit into a pornography image. Any act involving distribution of such materials is considered as a crime. The scary and important thing to highlight here is that the victims are not even aware that they are being targeted or already a victim.

Anonymous doesn't mean safe.

Most of the online users thought they are safe online because they remain anonymous when they go online, but this is not guaranteed. Most of the time, online users are being bullied, stalked or harassed online. Usually, cyber criminals do not select a particular target to commit crime, therefore, anonymity would not help much in preventing or protecting us to avoid from cyber-crimes. Online users have to take such thing seriously by reporting such cases for people to take actions to stop the crime or the criminals.

Oftentimes, cyber-crimes traverse jurisdictional boundaries.

Even though we are in the era with all kinds of new and high technologies computer systems, it is still challenging for even the most respected of agencies such as FBI or Interpol to keep track and to catch cyber criminals. Anyone, who has a computer and are able to access to the internet can commit crime such as stalking and harassing. Furthermore, cyber criminals not only committing crimes towards local victims, but people from other countries can be their victims too. Therefore, it is very difficult for any related organizations that are able to take action on cyber criminals to actually take proper action on them.

The internet hides criminal or evil intentions.

Any basic online activities such as chatting, messaging, posting, downloading or uploading may lead to atrocious crimes. We do not know the intention of people that we meet online, whether they are good online users or they may harm us anytime. For example, a kidnapper who wants to kidnap a child will act as a friend of you, to keep track of your daily activities until they get a best chance to commit crime on your child. Criminals can easily commit crimes while during basic online activities to get what they want

Written By:

Chen Tze Yang

Bachelor of Public Relations (Honours)

Tunku Abdul Rahman University College