Different Types of Cybercrime in Cyber World

Last Updated on 1 year by Touhid

In modern-day, cybercriminals are very smart in technology, and they apply different types of cybercrime techniques to get unauthorized of a system. The victims can be individuals or organizations who keep sensitive information.

Cybercrime impacts an individual or business’s reputation. If you want to keep your reputation, you must know about cybercrime and how it can attack your business. That’s why in this post, we will cover what is cybercrime, the types of cybercrime, and their attacking techniques.

Hope, you will learn about cybercrime from this post.

What is Cybercrime?

Cybercrime is a criminal activity that involves the computer, mobile devices, and network systems. The main aim of cybercrime is to steal information, damage data, spread malware, commit fraud, trafficking in child pornography, and generate profit for cybercriminals. The man who performs these illegal activities is called a cybercriminal.

Cybercrime is also called computer crime, where some illegal activities (such as hacking information, committing fraud, and child pornography) are done through computers.

There are different ways a cybercrime may happen; the Internet is one of the most common mediums of cybercrime. All digital devices such as computers, notebooks, and smartphones are connected to the internet. So, there is a chance to attack these devices by cybercriminals.

Different Types of Cybercrime

Nowadays, cybercrime is one of the most profitable ways to make money in the cyber world. There are different types of cybercrime in the cyber world such as hacking, phishing, spyware, malware, ransomware, and social engineering attacks.

To learn more about each type of cybercrime, keep reading this section.

1. Hacking Cybercrime

Hacking is types of cybercrime that identifies the weakness in computer systems and control over security systems in order to gain unauthorized access for illegal purposes.

This type of cybercrime can steal information, damage data, or bring down the servers and networks of an organization. And the person who performs these illegal activities is called a hacker.

Typically, a hacker is a person who is skilled in computer programs and utilizes their technical knowledge to find and exploits the weakness in computer systems to gain unauthorized access.

There are different types of hackers in the cyber world such as white hat, black hat, and grey hat hacker. A hacker can be an individual or group of members.

2. Fraud Cybercrime

Fraud is a type of cybercrime that intentionally intends to deceive a person for monetary or personal gain. This cybercrime always includes a false statement, misrepresentation, or deceitful conduct and its main purpose is to gain something of value, usually money.

For Example: A person pays for something with a check, and he knows that there is not enough money in the account to cover the cost.

There are different types of fraud and one of the most common types of fraud is check fraud. There are also some other types of fraud, which are as follows:

• Internet sales
• Website misdirection
• Charities fraud
• Mail Fraud
• Identity theft
• Credit card fraud
• Insurance fraud

3. Phishing

We know that there are different types of cybercrime in cyber security. And Phishing is one of the most common types of cybercrime which attempts to gain sensitive and confidential information such as usernames, passwords, credit card information, network credentials.

This type of cybercrime can happen via different ways such as email, text message, social media, websites, or by phone.

The phishing email may have a vulnerable URL link or malicious attachment file. If you click on that link then it may redirect to a vulnerable website or may install malware on your computer to hack your sensitive information.

There are different ways that you may infected by phishing cybercrime, which are as follows:

• Lack of awareness about Phishing attacks.
• Widespread use of email accounts.
• Clicking on a suspicious URL.
• Provide sensitive information on the internet.
• Don’t have antivirus software.

User awareness about phishing attack and technical education is the best ways to protect from this type of cybercrime.

4. Zero-Day-Attack

Zero-day attack is a type of cybercrime that is an application-based computer security threat. It is an unknown security vulnerability or security hole in a software or application when the software development has been completed by software engineers.

It happens when the security patch has not been released or the developers were unaware of or did not have sufficient time to fix the vulnerability.

However, if the vulnerability is not solved by the developer, then this type of cybercrime can impact computer programs, data, or a network

5. Denial-of-Service Attacks

In this post, we are discussing different types of cybercrime. Already, we have discussed some cybercrime. Now we will discuss Denial-of-Service or DoS attacks.

A Denial-of-Service or DoS attack is types of cybercrime that shutdown a system or network and makes it inaccessible to the intended users.

In this cybercrime, an attacker attempts to prevent legitimate users from accessing specific computer systems, devices, or other resources.

Typically, DoS attacks flood a web server, application, or network of an organization by sending huge amounts of traffic to overwhelm the victim’s resources.

In addition, a Denial-of-Service attack floods an application with requests until normal traffic is unable to be processed, resulting in a denial-of-service attack.

 6. Cybersquatting Cybercrime

Cybersquatting is a criminal offense related to website domains which registering, selling or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit. These types of cybercrime are also known as domain squatting.

When you want to register a domain name, you should first check whether the domain name is available or not. If the website address is functional and related to the subject of the domain name, then the domain is not for sale.

If the website address is inaccessible or states, the following message then you are a victim of cybersquatting.

• The website is “under construction.”
• Browser displays “cannot find server” error.
• Information about how to buy this domain.
• The website has no relation to the domain name.

7. Spoofing Cybercrime

Spoofing is a cybercrime where an attacker attempts to gain unauthorized access to a user’s system or information by pretending to be the user.

In general, spoofing is a fraudulent attempt in which communication is sent from an unknown source and disguised as a known source to the receiver.

Its main purpose is to spread malware, stealing user’s sensitive information such as bank account details, personal information, login credentials, credit card details, etc.

The most common forms of spoofing are IP Spoofing, email spoofing, and DNS spoofing and email spoofing is one of the best-known spoofing.

8. Social Engineering

Social engineering is another types of cybercrime in which cyber criminals make direct contact with victims through phone calls, emails, or the victim clicking a deceptive link or visiting a malicious website.

It is a popular tactic of cyber-attack because it is often easier to exploit users’ weaknesses and vulnerabilities such as their emotions, easy mindless than it is to find a network or software vulnerability.

The most popular types of social engineering attacks are phishing, spear phishing, bating, etc.

In this cybercrime, the attackers take benefit of the user’s weakness, faith, and influence to visit a vulnerable website or click a malicious link to hack their information.

9. Ransomware

Ransomware is a cybercrime that is the most common type of cyber crime in the cyber world to hack your sensitive information. It is a type of malicious software or program that blocks to access the computer system and demands for bitcoin to access the system.

There are different types of ransomware cybercrime attacks such as WannaCry, Petya, Cerber, Locky, and CryptoLocker.

The ransomware cybercrime can be installed on your device in the following ways:

• When downloading and opening a malicious attachment.
• Install free software or applications.
• Visiting a malicious website.
• Clicking on vulnerable website URL.

10. Malware

Already, we have discussed some different types of cybercrime. Now we will discuss another common type of computer crime which is called malware.

Malware is a malicious program which is designed to extensive damage to data and systems or to gain unauthorized access to a computer system.

It is delivered in the form of a link or over email and it requires user to click on the link or open the file to execute the malware.

Malware is very risky to those companies that save their information on computers or servers. If their computer or server is attacked by malware, then their information will be hacked by attackers.

So, you may consider the following tips to protect from this type of cybercrime.

• Don’t download suspicious attachments.
• Never click on suspicious URLs.
• Don’t use free software.
• Up to date your operating system.
• Use antivirus software on your device.

11. SQL Injection

SQL injection is one of the most common types of cybercrime that allows cybercriminals to control an application’s database. In many cases, cybercriminals can modify or delete this data including the malicious code in SQL statements, via web page input.

These types of cybercrime occur when an application fails to properly sanitize the SQL statements. The attacker can include their own malicious SQL commands to access the database.

12. Cross Site Scripting (XSS)

Cross-site Scripting (XSS) is a web security vulnerability and client-side code injection attack, which executes malicious scripts in the web browser of the victim. It includes malicious code in a legitimate web page or web application.

It occurs when a victim visits that type of web page or application that executes the malicious code inside the victim’s browser then the attacker can fully compromise their interaction with the application.

13. Cyberstalking

Cyberstalking is technological harassment in which the attacker harasses a victim using electronic communication, such as e-mail or messages posted to a website, social media or blog.

We have discussed different types of cybercrime but cyberstalking is a serious crime, and no one wants to become a victim of that crime. So, the best way of protecting yourself is to keep your personal information private on the internet

Conclusion

Finally, cybercrime is the most profitable but illegal way to make money in the cyber world. The main purpose of cybercrime is to hack information, damage data, install malware, commit fraud, and generate profit for cybercriminals. Hope the article “types of cybercrime” will be helpful for you.