Universiti Kuala Lumpur Business School

February 2023 Semester

EIB10103 - Writing for Academic Purposes
Mid-Semester Exam (30%)
___________________________________________________________________
Name: ___________________________________ Duration: 1hour
30mins
Student ID : _______________________________
Instruction: Read the following text and write a summary in about 250 words on the
causes of cybercrime and how to tackle it. In your summary, include the following
using the APA 7th edition format:
i. ONE Direct Quotation (as quoted by the author);
ii. ONE Indirect Quotation (as quoted by the author);
iii. ONE Citation from a Secondary Source (Direct or Indirect); and
iv. the Reference at the end of the summary.

Danger of Cybercrime and Its Preventive Measures

By Howarth Bouis and Ravi Meenakshi

November 11, 2022
Journal of Technology | Volume 3 | Issue 11| Page 11-20

The world today is connected via the Internet where it has increased rapid
growth of technology and developments in many areas. Education, businesses,
medical, agriculture, tourism and many other fields have grown due to the use of
technological advancements with the help of Internet. The Internet has brought many
advantages in every aspects of human lives; people are connected via text
messaging, emails, and social media even though they are living further apart from
each other. Other than that, shopping also has become easy through the online
shopping platform like Lazada, Shopee and even through social media application
like TikTok. Hence, it can be said that technology and Internet has make the world
becomes small. Even though Internet has brought many advantages and has
become an integral part of human lives, this technology has brought along some
disadvantages and bad effects to human beings. One of the most dangerous effects

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of this technology is cybercrime. Hence, cybercrime can be termed as a crime where
a computer is used to commit crimes facilitated by using the Internet.

Criminals who performed this illegal type of crime is called as hackers or

cybercriminals. These hackers or cybercriminals mainly use the Internet and
computer technology such as PCs or personal computers to hack either a user’s
personal computers, smartphone data, personal details from bank transaction and
also from private network. Cybercrime usually involves crimes such as hacking,
spamming, phishing, identity theft, online shopping scams and also data breach.
Cyber Insurance (2021) in their report mentioned that people left their digital footprint
everywhere everyday especially through online purchasing, groceries shopping
through the use of debit card or even using their ATM cards. This has made it easy
for hackers to track down their details by exploiting and stealing their details.

In essence, there are many types of cybercrimes and one of the most
common ones is hacking. This type of crime is performed by sending illegal
instructions or information to other computers or networks. Hackers usually managed
to hack a person’s personal computer from a remote location and they will use
varieties of software to crack a person’s personal computer in order to steal their
personal data and important details. The second type is piracy or theft. These crimes
happened over the use of Internet when an individual violates the copyrights by
downloading music, movies, games and software illegally. Next is cyber stalking
where an individual is harassed via online messages and emails. According to the
FBI report of the United States in 2020, usually the preparators know their victims
and resort to online or cyber stalking to harass their victims. The last or most
common type of cybercrime is identity theft. This has become a major problem as
the hackers use the Internet to get access to the a person’s bank account, credit
cards, debit card and this usually happened during online transactions.

One of the factors that lead to cybercrime is easy access. This is due to poor
firewall to safeguard the computer system from any an authorised personnel or
access. This has made it easy for skilled hackers to steal such as codes, retina
images, data voice recorders and even biometrics. These hackers will use many
technological tools to help them bypass the firewalls and the security systems in
order to reach the codes and ultimately steal the person’s identity. Another reason

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that can be taken into consideration on why hackers commit this crime is due to low
capacity of storage data. By having a low capacity of storage system, this has made
it easier for hackers to steal data from any story device and used it for their own
benefits.

Operating system in the computer are programmed by millions of codes by

humans. This is to allow the computer to run its tasks according to its desired
applications and these are programmed by individuals who work in the IT field. Due
to millions of codes, there is no guarantee that human errors do not contribute to
errors in codes which ultimately lead to cybercrime. These cyber criminals take
advantage on this situation by tracking down those codes to breach the software and
operating system. Next is human negligence in protecting own personal computer
from being accessed. This can be done by protecting our computer system by
having stronger use of passwords for different accounts. One of the ways is by
having a combination of words and numbers for one password. This is highly
recommended by the experts as having this combination makes it hard for hackers
to try to breach the password rather than having weak passwords that can easily be
broken (Baptis, 2018).

Some people commit cybercrime due to their personal motivation. This

incident usually happened due to personal revenge that cybercriminals or hackers
have towards someone that they have grudge with. This has become one of the
most highly sorted cybercrimes and sometimes this crime is performed by younger
persons who learned about it through the Internet (Bruce, 2019). Another source of
cybercrime is financial motivation. This is one of the most common motivation for
cybercriminals or hackers to commit cybercrime as they want to gain profit from it.
Imagined that if they can hack an individual’s personal bank account, it would
definitely be a nightmare for the victim.

In today’s world, making online transactions is part of our daily life. This is
especially when we do online shopping. Making online transactions is one of the
most vulnerable acts as it open chances to hackers to track down our details.
According to National Crime Records Bureau of India report, there is an increase in
cybercrimes within two years in India from the year 2018-2020 with 84% and this
statistic is not only in India but also throughout the world where the use of Internet

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has made it easy for people to commit illegal things like cybercrimes. Their usual
target would be through the use of our social media accounts. Public are advised to
set their social media accounts as private and not to share their personal details
publicly and to also regularly check and update their security settings.

Meanwhile, it is also advisable for public to frequently change their

passwords. Experts have advised not to stick to only one password and it should be
changed regularly so that it is difficult for hackers to access the password and the
stored data. Besides that, to protect important data like financial and taxes
information stored on our personal computers, the use of encryption is highly
recommended. Encryption is another level of protection that we can use to protect
our data besides using stronger passwords. Another option that can be done to
tackle this issue is by securing our phones. This to keep our phones safe from
malicious software like computer viruses and hackers. One way to do this is by
keeping the phone operating system up-to-date. It is also pivotal to install anti-virus
software to help keep secure our lock screen as nobody can access your personal
information on the phone in case you lost it.

Security software including firewall and antivirus software are the basic online
security that are necessary to protect our personal computers. This is essential to be
installed in keeping our personal, financial and other important data to be stored
safely in the personal computer. This alternative can help to secure our important
information from being assessed by any an authorised person as well as malicious
software invasion into our operating system. Parental control is also needed to
monitor the children online activities from becoming victims of cybercrime. What can
be done by the parents are to be cautious and frequently check and keep an eye on
their children’s browser history. According to McCartney (2021), this can be done by
installing parental control in the mobile applications especially in the children’s social
media accounts. This preventive measure can help to restrict and limit children to
access only the secured sites and this will help children safe from online theft.

Hence, preventive measures must be taken and the issue of cybercrimes is

not something to be taken lightly. Today, the number of hackers who committed
cybercrimes has increased in large numbers. Governments and private agencies

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around the world are working at their best to come out with applicable preventive
measures before many victims fall into this trap. It is also our duty as the citizen to
bring such awareness to the public about the danger of cybercrimes and what should
be done to reduce the number of this crime in the society.

Adapted from https://www.cybercrimes.com