Effects of Cyber Crime
Cybercrime is currently on the rise in our society ranging from fraud, spam, offensive contents, harassments, hacking and malware or virus among others. Most cyber criminals take advantage of the secrecy, anonymity, and vast networking system that are available on the internet. The scope of cyber crime is on the rise with a loss of over $ 525 million in the USA alone via impersonation email scams, intimidation, and fraud among others. Irrespective of the present law enforcement to keep pace with the ever increasing cyber crimes, there are numerous impacts regarding cyber crimes that range from economic loss, threats and even death of the victims of cyber crimes. Cyber crimes affect people’s lives negatively, jobs, money, and loss of identity among others. The essay henceforth discusses the impacts of cyber crimes in the society.
Businesses in the current society become major victims of cyber crimes. Most of the firms that operate online experience computer crimes lead to the loss of revenue, loyalty to customers among others. The companies under such attack lose crucial information via the internet where the criminal hack their systems. The companies are currently vulnerable to hacking which raises their risks of losing data to the criminals. As a result, most of the transactions in such enterprises reduce which lead to poor performance due to constant losses within a short time. On the same note, companies suffer losses due to cyber crimes regarding building safety programs, managing the attacks as well as recovering information that is at ransom by attackers who demand the release of such information at a fee. On the same version, competitors of a given enterprise gain access or buy such crucial information from hackers to get an advantage through access to the secret of operations hence the victim company records losses. Besides, the enterprises waste a lot of time handling risk incidences that led to the cyber crimes. Such valuable time is essential for developing the company. Therefore, there is a reduction of productivity in the company especially when the company takes a lot of time in developing relevant measures to reduce the cyber crimes. Also, the companies that fall, victims of cyber crimes, spend a lot of money to use antivirus or stop the malware through the installation of stronger security software to reduce chances of another attack.
Separately, cyber crimes lead to negative impacts on the economy of a nation. For example, US lost about $ 32 billion through direct fraud and other crime related activities online. Besides, about 74 million online users in the USA are victims of cybercrime which have resulted in the loss of income. Thus, the nation continues to lose economically in the long run.
Cyber crimes lead to loss of consumer trust in different enterprises. In most cases, cyber attackers hack into other people’s spaces and break into their email accounts. Also, businesses such as hospitals that store crucial information of patients online are vulnerable to hacking. In such situations, personal information of the patients is usually leaked online to the public hence the victims lose trust with such enterprises. Therefore, most customers continue to lose confidence in different sectors that consistently experience internet attacks hence they risk losing their crucial information.
Lastly, victims of cyber attacks lose their information such as credit card numbers, PIN, Insurance, emails, and passwords. The victims even lose their identities especially when the hackers gain access to their emails and decrypt all the personal and confidential information. On the same note, the victims become vulnerable to cyber bullying besides losing money they pay regarding ransom to recover the crucial information. On a separate note, the victims lose their reputation when the hackers release their health records or financial information regarding their loan statuses.
In conclusion, cyber crimes have devastating effects on people, businesses, and even nations. Under attacks, people lose their identity, money and even reputations while companies experience losses regarding fraud, ransom as well as loyal customers. Besides, nations such as the USA continue to suffer economic losses due to increase in cyber crimes. However, numerous measures are in place to curb cyber crimes. For example, businesses continue to conduct transactions in safe environments that have cloud connectivity with secure firewalls while online users continue to use strongly encrypted email accounts. On a spate note, nations have strict laws and regulations regarding cyber crimes besides creation of awareness on the importance of cyber crime prevention and the use of anti-virus software.
