Ethical And Social Issues Of Computer Viruses And Computer Sabotage

In the early days of computing, a hacker was primarily referred to as a computer guru, someone who is extremely technical with a high expertise in computer also known as “Expert Programmers”. Nevertheless, as technology is advancing at a face pace, hacking has adopted a completely different definition. The modern definition is someone who access a computer system primarily to steal or destroy information. Hacking has caused major harm in the realm of technology. Over the years, hackers have become much more lethal in their craft. They manage to break into complex information systems from entities such as banks, government agencies, and private businesses. Furthermore, they often manipulate their victims through social engineering in order to obtain financial benefits. Hackers hold different label such as: black hat hacker and white hat hacker in which all have their own motives.

As the world becomes ever more involved within the digital realm, it is important to asses acts that may be morally questionable. Such acts like that of a hacker, Hack, and her unauthorized intrusion into a hospital database done purely for personal pleasure. It is my goal to prove that doing so is morally wrong. The proponent of this act, Mickey Soft, lists it as morally permissible for the following reasons:

Each year there are many attempts to illegal gain entry into networks by attackers to steal information. Some attacks are designed to steal information while other may be to attack a system to cause damage or disrupt services. Attack can happen from anywhere in the world due to the internet and networks. A person from China can hack into an American network or such Stuxnet virus attack on Iran nuclear power plan which thought to be from Israel or United States but it is unsure where the virus originated from. According to Merkow & Breithaupt (2006), viruses caused the greatest financial loss over other computer crimes, (p 142). Worm is a type of virus which replicates and can easily infect a machine and then spread out across the network by using transport features of the computer or network.

On December 15, 2013, Target released a statement confirming that malware had been installed and that most of it eliminated. Accordingly, reports indicated that Fazio computer approved the proposal of project management and the intruders’ compromised agreement publicizing to the company reportedly, the report reads. Besides, media reports indicated victimization of Fazio for phishing email comprising the malware Target used for installing another malware on the system of target, together with Target’s Point of Sale (POS) system used in recording transactions of cards and all payments. Cybercrime or internet hacking, according to Computer Crime Research Center Aghatise E. Joseph, is an internet crime committed using a computer as a tool or a victim targeted. Notably, it is much challenging to categorize general internet crimes into distinct groups since most cybercrimes evolve on a daily basis.

Following the terrorist attacks on September of 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law The USA PATRIOT Act. Intended to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, The Patriot Act made changes to surveillance laws that enabled the U.S government to collect computer information about both American and foreign citizens in unprecedented ways. During the following years, through a series of legislative changes and court decisions, The United States National Security Agency was gradually granted the authority to collect information on a massive scale by implementing programs such as PRISM, which collects internet communications from at least nine major US internet companies such as Google, Facebook Yahoo and Apple ; XKEYSCORE, which gave the NSA the ability to secretly access databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals; MYSTIC, which allows them to collect the metadata as well as the content of phone calls from several entire countries, as well as many other programs with similar mass surveillance capabilities . To put it in simple terms, together this programs essentially enables almost unlimited warrantless surveillance of anyone and everyone anywhere in the world, regardless of that person nationality, affiliation or lack thereof to any criminal or terrorist group.

In a world where technology is increasingly becoming the way of life, it was only a matter of time before crime was no longer just in the streets but happening online as well. Criminals now get a new approach to carry out their crimes with the use of computers. Since technology is more like a murder mystery than catching the bad guy in the act, a new discipline of forensics needed to be put into place. This is known as computer forensics. Forensic science is any science used for the purpose of law. In the case of computer forensics it is “the discipline that combines elements of law and computer science to collect and analyze data from computer systems, networks, wireless communications, and storage devices in a way that is admissible as evidence in a court of law” (U.S. Cert, 2008). Meaning if you do something illegal on the Internet it can be found.

Two of the common known attacks on computing systems are the deployment of computer viruses and malware.

With everything in society advancing rapidly, it should be of no surprise that technology is now used to commit crimes against other people. Those crimes include identity theft, stealing money, illegal gambling, and cyberstalking. This paper will review cybercrime and the differences there are from traditional crime and it will review the purpose of hackers. There will also be three cases reviewed to help bring light to what kind of cybercrimes are being committed around the world.

The ethical issues surrounding hacking, stem from several sources mainly dealing with order and control, and information ownership. What is difficult to decipher from all the media hoopla surrounding the terms, "hacker" and "hacking" is both the simultaneous sensationalism and the condemnation of said activities. Of course just recently, even a movie was made and was appropriately called Hackers. The term and all that it implies has truly entered our popular consciousness when Hollywood has made a box office movie on it. As the advancement of computer technologies and systems of information become increasingly more and more complex in today's fast paced modern world and said technologies become an integral

Just like a biological virus, a computer virus is able to infect and ruin lives. This malicious software constitutes more than just simple viruses but also includes other types of software including worms, Trojan horses, and ransomware. Malware has been around since the late 1980’s. Originally, people became hackers to gain notoriety online, but today, it has become more of a business. Cyber attacks originate from all around the world, and it is not just individual people that benefit from it. In two decades, numerous cyber crime syndicates have been created, and states all over the world sponsor hacker groups. Over the past twenty-five years, malware has become less about checking the integrity of computer security and gaining notoriety in the underground cyber society, and it has become more of a chaos creating, money making business that many people and institutions take part in.

As the world becomes more and more reliant on computers the computer hacking industry is greatly rising. With people such as Kevin Mitnick, who is known as a "computer terrorist" (Kjochaiche 1), computerized information isn't safe any more. Kevin is known as "the most high-profiled computer criminal and responsible for more havoc in the computer world today."(1) He considered this a fun and easy task. He got caught and thrown into prison, but once he got out nothing changed. Kevin stated that as long as the technology is there it just calls to people to break into it. Computer hackers usually start off young, thinking that it is nothing but a little harmless fun. But as they get older, they realize it has turned into

Cybercrime we have when a computer is the object of the crime like hacking, phishing, spamming or is used as a tool to commit an offense like the child pornography, hate crimes etc.

One of the ways in which cyber criminals like to operate is by causing an interruption of service which can cause significant damage to all those effected. When a network comes to a screeching halt, so do all of the services that corporation or organization provides.

There are special viruses that creates different types of malicious problems on a network or computer, for instance it will create or open programs to perform tasks. Viruses is also used for denial of service attacks, password cracking and many more. This can be fought against by having a reliable protection service; it is safer if this is taken from the provider itself.

-The technical definition of computer crimes is an act performed by a knowledgeable computer user, sometimes referred to as a hacker that illegally browse or steals a company 's or individual 's private information, but in general terms, it is the unauthorized use of a computer for personal gain, as in the illegal transfer of funds or to alter the data or property of others (Computer Crime, 2016). There are four major categories of computer crimes, first we will discuss using the computer as a target. When using the computer as a target, they must do two things: intrusion meaning to gain access to the computer and deny the owner of the computer access to the service and data. Intrusion is when the individual alters the data. To use the computer as a target, the hacker must alter the password and/or login and by doing this he is denying the owner access to the data. If a hacker makes a copy of data they are denying the owner rights to privacy of his or her data. The hacker will use that information to intrude upon another computer. One popular method that can be used to deny service is to