Cyber crime covers a broad spectrum of criminal activities that involve various digital platforms and technologies. Many types of cyber crimes are worth discussing, from fraudulent emails and social media activity to phishing scams and ransomware attacks. While some of these overlap with how they are committed, the most common include:
Email Scams
Misleading schemes that take many forms. Fake emails mislead recipients, while social engineering techniques deceive people into divulging information, such as credit card numbers, or transferring money to the attacker. Phishing schemes, whereby scammers mimic legitimate brands, are a common form of email scams.
Social Media Fraud
Scams that use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to deceive and defraud victims. Examples include fictitious online stores, catfishing, social engineering attacks, or impersonation scams. Social media frauds often exploit user trust, naivety, and a tendency to overshare personal information online.
Banking Fraud
Fraudulent activities that target financial institutions or their customers and stakeholders. Banking frauds most commonly result in significant financial loss or identity theft, and attacker strategies often involve sophisticated hacking and social engineering tactics. Examples include credit card fraud, ATM skimming, and online banking scams.
eCommerce Fraud
Elaborate consumer scams that exploit weaknesses and pitfalls of online shopping technologies, like artificial or fabricated online stores, fake seller accounts, or credit card information theft. Cases of eCommerce fraud typically result in financial losses on behalf of both consumers and online retailers.
Malware
A highly-prevalent software attack programmed to damage and manipulate computer systems by introducing viruses, trojans, or spyware into the system. Malware is a frequent problem across many cases because it targets both individual PCs and enterprise-level computer networks. It's most commonly used for disrupting networks and stealing data from users.
Ransomware
A type of malware attack that encrypts victims' critical data and declares a ransom payment in exchange for a decryption key to recover access. Financially crippling for individuals and organizations alike, ransomware attacks often lead to data and asset loss, fiscal devastation, and disrupted productivity. One of the most talked about ransomware cases involved Costa Rica’s government and erupted into a national emergency.
Cyber Espionage
The use of hacking, malware attacks, or other cyber activity in which an unauthorized user attempts to access sensitive data or intellectual property to gain a competitive advantage over a company or government entity. Cases of cyber espionage often involve state-sponsored groups or individual hackers and can have major political or economic implications. One of the most significant cases of cyber espionage was the five Chinese military hackers indicted for computer hacking, economic espionage, and other offenses directed at U.S. entities.
Data Breaches
Unauthorized access or leaks of sensitive data, such as confidential information, critical records, or financial access. Data breaches can be attributed to a wide array of risk factors, such as weak passwords and cybersecurity protocols, software system vulnerabilities, or insider threats. The consequences can result in compromised data, financial damages, or tarnished reputations. Verizon's data breach investigations report highlighted that 82% of breaches involved a human element.
Computer Viruses
Perhaps the most common type of malicious software that can self-replicate and spread to other systems, often causing damage to computer files or programs. Examples of computer viruses include the Melissa, ILOVEYOU, and Nimda viruses - all spread fast to infect files and damage computer systems.
DDoS Attacks
Distributed Denial of Service attacks, or DDoS attacks, are programmed to overwhelm a network or website with traffic, causing it to slow down or crash entirely. DDoS attacks were one of many of Russia’s destructive cyber activities against Ukraine, along with other attacks designed to delete computer data belonging to governmental and private entities.
Software Piracy
A digital form of intellectual property theft involving unauthorized use or distribution of copyrighted material, such as software, music, or movies. Examples of software piracy include using key generators or crack software to activate paid software without a license.
Phishing Scams
Email fraud that involves techniques like deceptive emails, website scams, or misleading communications to con victims into sharing their personal information and sensitive data or clicking links to malicious downloads and websites. Examples of phishing scams involve emails that appear to be from household brands, financial institutions, government agencies, or social media sites.
Identity Theft
In a digital context, identity theft refers to acquiring someone's private data for fraudulent or malicious purposes. Target assets of identity theft include social security numbers, date of birth, credit card details, or online accounts. Specific types include financial, medical, and tax identity theft; social media impersonation; and identity cloning, when a person uses another's identity to conceal their own.
Online Harassment
Involves cyberbullying, cyberstalking, and repeated acts intended to scare, harm, anger, or shame a particular individual. Today, online harassment is most prevalent on social media sites, dating apps, and forums/message boards. Examples of online harassment include sending inappropriate and unsolicited messages, making clear and intentional threats, or distributing sensitive photos or videos of a victim.
Cyber Terrorism
Generally grander acts of destruction online by using the Internet or computer technology to carry out acts of terror, such as causing infrastructure damage and catastrophic malfunctions, stealing confidential information, or spreading propaganda with political or cultural implications. Cases of cyber terrorism are becoming increasingly sophisticated, placing higher demands on cybersecurity and protection.
