Cybercrime and its Impacts on Younger Generation

What is Cybercrime?

Cybercrime is also known as Computer Crime, which specifically involves a computer and a network. The computer involved could be the guilty or the victim. Cybercrime could be responsible for harming somebody's both financial health and security.

Cybercrime can be intercepting or disclosing someone's private information while being sent or received. This information could be very confidential. Globally, both government officials and non-officials engage in computer crimes like espionage, financial theft, and other cross-border crimes.

Two main categories of Cybercrimes are as follows −

• Criminal activity that targets computers

Cybercrimes that target computers often involve malware like viruses.

• Criminal activity that uses computers

Cybercrimes that use computers to commit other crimes involving the use of computers to spread malware, illegal information, or illegal images.

The most popular cyber threats are as follows −

Hacking − It includes social media and email passwords.

Phishing − It refers to those fake emails asking for security information and personal details from the receivers.

Malicious Software − It involves ransomware by which cyber hacker takeover files and hold them until they manage to get ransom from the receivers.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS − It generally attacks a target and cause denial of service against websites or users.

Global Effect of Cybercrime

Cybercrimes that cross international borders and involve the actions of any other foreign state are referred to as cyberwarfare. According to Warren Buffett, Cybercrime is the "number one problem with mankind" and "poses real risks to humanity”, which is true because cybercrime is not a victimless crime. It is a serious criminal offense as stressed strictly by the government. A US report in 2014 stated that cybercrimes have damaged the global economy annually by 445 billion which could be increased to 10.5 trillion by 2025.

Technology is evolving, and so does the nature of the crimes. People nowadays cannot imagine a world with no access to the internet or social media. Some utilize them for good, and some misuse them.

Cybercrime has become a trend. Following points can prove it how −

Variety of Crimes

Cybercrimes involve financial crimes or scams, cybersex trafficking or debit/credit card frauds, or ad frauds which gives people a wide variety of crimes to attempt.

Era of Technology

Being born and raised in an era of technology, younger groups of individuals are most commonly involved in cybercrimes. They do it for entertainment rather than realizing the consequences of their action.

Severe Punishment

The penalties or punishments for these crimes could be severe. Getting involved in cyber criminality or developing malware using their coding skills is considered illegal and is strictly against the law.

Technical Knowledge

These crimes require the perpetrators to inherit extensive technical knowledge. People do not use the computer merely as a tool yet something much more than that.

Newer Crimes

These crimes are relatively new, so society is yet to discover ways how to deal with them. There are plenty of such crimes committed daily on the internet. A study has stated that most kids started getting involved in cybercrimes when they were 16. The rate of cybercrimes done by adolescents has been a major rise in recent years.

How to Prevent Younger Generation from Cybercrime Trap?

Cybercrime leads to higher risks such as addiction to cyberbullying, sexual solicitation, and child pornography, which results in negativity in youth. So, it is important to educate them about cybercrimes.

Following ways can be considered to prevent young generation falling prey to Cybercrimes −

Strong Privacy setting

Setting a strong internet privacy setting on devices is advised using encryption passwords.

Eye on Kid’s Online Behavior

Keep an eye on our kids' online behavior and set some ground internet rules for them. Talk to them and comfort them so that they can come to you if they're experiencing any kind of online stalking, or bullying.

Use of VPN

Using a VPN is always a good idea whenever using a public Wi-Fi network in the library, cafe, hotel, or airport. A VPN encrypts all the traffic leaving your devices until it arrives at its destination.

Conclusion

As children these days are too involved in the Internet for studies and gaming, it is our duty as adults to teach the various ways to protect themselves from cybercrime traps from time to time. Not only to teach but also to track their actions over the Internet rather than regretting later.