Influence Of Cybercrime On Internet Users Information Technology Essay

The exceptional growth of internet continues into the 21st century, which has brought tremendous opportunities in the various fields of life like education, businesses and entertainment etc. Because of that everything has shrink to “click of a mouse”. However along with the increase in the benefits of internet, the risks involved in use of internet have also increased. That’s why we usually come across the fact that “crime” has made a home in cyberspace. [2][3]

Electric commerce is rapidly becoming the important part of global economy. e.g. around 50 millions customer visit ebay store online per day is around 50 million. ebay sellers do the business around 6 million pounds per day. The profit making capacity of online businesses such as ebay not only increased the global economy, but has also amplified the rate of online crimes due to large number of customers involved in online transactions. The fast and easy email sending has not only amplified the personal business communication but also increased the chance for confident and expert criminals to steal the important information like credit cards or date of birth of unaware users using email and keyboard capture devices.

Today, computers have become important of our day to day life. We know today with technology like neural networks and Nano-computing, atoms in a cup of water can be used to perform billions of operation per second. Cyber crime is a malevolence, which is growing with the increase in our reliance with computers in modern day to day life. In our today’s life when anything from kitchen to nuclear power plants is being run by computers. That’s way cyber crime has become so common in everywhere in our life where computer is in used..[2]

Cybercrime can said to be latest but it is perhaps the most complex problem in the cyber world. Cybercrime can be of various type but common thing in every cybercrime is that the computer is used as an object or subject in an act considered to be crime. Per Lord Atkin said in his book that, “Any criminal activity that uses a computer either as an instrumentality, target or a means for perpetuating further crimes comes within the ambit of cyber crime” Cybercrime has various definitions but generally a cybercrime can be understood as a unlawful conduct in which computer is either a target or tool or may be both. Computer can be utilized as a tool in various kinds of activities like financial crimes, online gambling, e-mail spoofing, forgery, cyber defamation. And computer can also be targeted for crime like unauthorized access to information, theft of the financial information like credit cards, Trojan attacks and even physically causing harm to computer system.[1][4]

Cyber crime is a growing perhaps the biggest problem in cyber world. It is comprises of criminal acts, performed by the use of computer network, mainly internet. That can be carried out by sitting remotely. Such types of acts include unauthorised access of files, disturbing the functionality of the programs using viruses, logic bombs etc. Experts today argue that what comprise the cybercrime. Generally it is understood to be consisting of traditional activities such as fraud, theft and forgery using computer. Today it also includes cyber stalking. Cybercrime can also have acts not considered as a crime under one authority or law but may be considered as a crime under other authority or law. [3][5]

This is a very important part of any research work, I have understood this concept clearly and I am going to get the primary data for my research from questionnaire. And for secondary data I have read various books written on cybercrime by great names, and also will be reading articles, journals, newspapers etc, in order to get as much data which would help me

analysis. In my research work I will use questionnaire method to collect primary data, as It is the best choice to get in depth information from real users with the help of some open ended multiple choice questions. Moreover, In order to get the real picture open ended questions are very much beneficial to collect specific and in depth information.

The reason I choose questionnaire method for my data gathering is that the information I need is directly related to the real time computer users, and there are different kind of techniques or ways of committing cybercrime. So I will make questionnaire considering various techniques and reasons, which lead a user to fall victim of a cybercrime. And one of the advantages of Questionnaire is that I am able to email and fax them to my require destination which is quick, safe. And this method is also cheap as compared to any other data collection methods. According to Kahn and Cannel, the most powerful technique of gathering consistent, valid and relevant data is questionnaire survey.

I am also aware of few limitations to my research work. Time constraint is the main limitation as I have to perform number of tasks in limited time like selection of topic, data collection, data analysis and concluding my research etc. Another limitation can be words as I would have to write comprehensive and in depth report with minimum words possible.