Cybercrime
What is cybercrime?
Cybercrime is a criminal activity aimed at the abuse of computer components, such as hardware and
software. In other words it can be considered a real cyber attack through the Internet with the
purpose of extorting personal and sensitive data or money. At the beginning, this phenomenon did
not arouse suspicion because of its aims, it later grew when the informatic criminals changed their
purpose aiming at terrorism and espionage for personal and financial interests of their countries.
Cybercrime, unfortunately, is a phenomenon in continuous expansion: cyber attacks since 2015
have increased by 300% and 80% of European companies suffered at least one cyber accident
during 2016.
The main types of cybercrime
There are various types of cyber attacks grouped into two categories: those aimed at committing
cyber abuse and those aimed at committing cyber fraud, cyberstalking and creating false identities.
These categories include in particular:
- Spamming, it means sending messages and advertising e-mail against the consent of the recipient;
- Phishing, a computer fraud in order to steal sensitive data:
- Malware infections, for the purpose of causing computer damage to the victim;
- Dos attacks, which block targeted services and therefore they are aimed at stopping their activities;
- Ransomware attacks, types of malware that require money in exchange for their removal.
Tips to combat cybercrime
No one is safe: cybercrime attacks ordinary people but also small and large, public and private
companies, regardless of the sector. To best protect computers it is essential to keep the software
and operating system up to date, and also to have an antivirus software that can detect and eliminate
computer threats. Regarding personal and sensitive data, it’s important to control and check the
URL of websites. It is also advisable to use complex passwords in such a way to be inaccessible to
attackers and also it is necessary to pay attention to spam email and not open the attachments within
them.