In this article we will understand what are cyber crimes, or cyber crimes, we will give tips on how to detect them, and above all, we will give many suggestions on how to protect yourself from criminals who use the internet to carry out the most varied crimes.
What are cyber crimes?
Crime is an illicit act, be it robbery, theft, or aggression among many other examples. Virtual crimes, also called cyber crimes, are these same illicit acts, however occurring or increasing within the virtual environment, through devices such as smartphones or computers.
Virtual crimes are much more difficult to be detected, as the criminal often hides through false profiles or using the anonymity that the internet provides in many cases.
Types and examples of cyber crimes
We can typify cybercrimes in different ways, and they can range from serving to defame a person, bullying or reputational attacks on social networks, to crimes that use security breaches to steal data and misuse victims’ personal accounts.
Let’s now list the main cyber crimes:
Identity and password theft
One of the most common types of cyber crimes, identity and password theft can be used to leverage many other crimes, such as improper purchases, financial transactions, and making personal loans in the victim’s name, among other crimes.
It is a very common crime due to the ease that criminals have to access this victim’s data, and this happens for several reasons, among which, the use of very easy passwords, such as a number in sequence or birthdays.
Fraudulent collection
Another easy and very popular cybercrime, fraudulent charging takes place from the theft of credit card data, for example. From the acquisition of this data, which can be stolen through some specific software, the criminal can modify a payment slip, changing, for example, the payment beneficiary.
Fraud via email
Another very common cybercrime is the one that uses the victims’ e-mail as an element of fraud.
This happens through links sent in fake billing emails, in fake institutional emails, such as from a government agency or a bank.
The links end up being bait for the victim to click and be the victim of some malware that can invade their computer or smartphone, stealing data and accounts from social networks or banking applications, for example.
False identity
Another virtual crime that is much seen today and that occurs when someone uses a false identity, or a false profile on social networks, to practice various crimes, such as incitement to hatred, defamation, slander, racism, blackmail, or to obtain any advantage. undue.
Pedophilia
We can see that many of the crimes that happen in a real environment can also be reproduced or amplified on the internet.
One of these cyber crimes is pedophilia, unfortunately it is very common in the internet environment, which consists of using the virtual environment to create pages with child pornographic content, or to propagate through social networks images of children and adolescents with erotic purposes. .
Selling illegal items on the internet
Another increasingly common crime on the internet is related to the trade in items prohibited by law, such as drugs, illegal weapons, exotic animals and animals protected by environmental legislation, among many other examples.
Sellers often hide through false identities and thus create fake profiles and sell all kinds of illegal items on social networks or sales sites.
Hate speech
You have certainly already witnessed some hate speech on social media, promoted or by some fake profile, or even by real profiles.
Hate crimes have proliferated a lot in recent years, through a culture of intolerance increasingly excited on social media and the internet as a whole.
Among the most common hate speeches are those involving homophobia or racism, as well as apology for Nazism, troubled periods such as the military dictatorship, speeches of xenophobia, which is practiced against people from cities, states or countries. different from that person.
Illegal or gambling
Many countries have stricter laws against gambling, and because of that, a virtual loophole was opened so that gambling or illegal games could be increasingly played in the virtual environment. Thus, one of the most common cyber crimes has been gambling, which can be addictive, causing victims to lose everything they own.
Bullying or cyberbullying
One of the first virtual crimes popularized through social networks was bullying, or rather, cyberbullying.
It consists of defaming or attacking a victim insistently through the internet, whether websites, social networks or other means, making them feel smaller, ashamed, diminished or belittled.
The purpose of cyber bullying is to destroy reputations and self-esteem, with the most destructive power, including encouraging or driving victims to commit suicide.
Copyright infringement
One of the most popular cyber crimes is the violation of copyright, through the publication and sharing of links to movies, music and series in a pirated way, that is, free for people to consume.
Many times pages and sites still charge people unduly for them to have access to pirated content. This cyber crime harms an entire commercial and entertainment industry.
Theft and sale of corporate data
Much more complex than the theft of personal data, the theft of data from a company, whether private or public, is one of the cyber crimes with the greatest power of financial destruction, as it often involves the loss of thousands and millions of dollars or reais. .
It is a more sophisticated cybercrime that involves hacking or a much more advanced knowledge of internet tools to obtain corporate data and pass it on to competitors, for example.
