Stopping Cyber Crime and Cyber Criminal

Cyber crime is pernicious and can only be stopped through a widespread and diverse campaign involving primarily prevention. Moreover, cyber crime can only be prevented and stopped by better understanding the types of cyber crimes, and differentiating between them. For individuals and businesses, preventing cyber crimes entails a variety of common sense activities and tools including overall education and awareness that includes ongoing updates about how to secure sensitive data and prevent problems. Some cyber crimes are actually traditional crimes carried out in the digital landscape, ranging from child pornography to human, drug, and weapons trafficking. Other cyber crimes present clear threats to national security, such as hacking of banking or utilities management systems. Each type of cyber crime needs to be dealt with individually, with a broad overall approach that empowers individuals and businesses against would-be criminals.

The nature of cyber crime is de-centralized and geographically independent. Therefore, task forces to combat cyber crime need also take into account their jurisdictional barriers and work with international law enforcement agencies when necessary. A cyber criminal working in Russia has the same chance of hacking a system in the United States as a hacker in the United States. However, the most common types of cyber criminals are actually insiders: employees of an organization performing crimes like embezzlement (Nykodym, Taylor & Wilela, 2005). Moreover, employees who use social media, shop online, or perform other non-work related activities on company devices are potentially placing their organization's systems at risk. Therefore, all non-work related activities should be heavily policed in the interests of company security.

Firewalls, anti-virus software, and robust password management are three of the top methods of preventing cyber crime from occurring in any venue. Similarly, securing mobile devices, ensuring all software is kept up-to-date, and data encryption are ways of preventing cyber crime from occurring. These simple methods are not foolproof and cyber criminals often develop the means by which to circumvent them, but individuals and organizations can at least stop some cyber crimes by becoming aware of how to better secure their own systems. Organizations need to better prepare their employees by providing regular seminars in how to stop cyber crimes from taking place, and how to identify security breaches before they become problems. Minimizing Web and other Internet access on organizational systems can help, as employee activity can be better managed on company LANs.