Computer Abuse and Computer Crime

Definitions

Computer Abuse: The willful or negligent unauthorized activity that affects the availability, confidentiality, or integrity of computer resources, or the unauthorized use of, or access to, a computer for purposes contrary to the wishes of the owner of the computer or the data held thereon. Computer abuse includes fraud, embezzlement, theft, malicious damage, unauthorized use, denial of service, and misappropriation. Attacking computers by some malicious computer programs is also one kind of computer abuse. Types of attackers:


Virus
a program that incorporates copies of itself into other programs.
Worm
a program that invades a computer and disables it.
Bacterium
a program that replicates itself and feeds off the host system by eating up processor time and memory.
Trojan horse
a program that performs some apparently useful fct., while containing hidden code that performs a usually malicious action.



Computer Crime, cybercrime, e-crime, hi-tech crime or electronic crime generally refers to criminal activity where a computer or network is the source, tool, target, or place of a crime. These categories are not exclusive and many activities can be characterized as falling in one or more category. Additionally, although the terms computer crime or cybercrime are more properly restricted to describing criminal activity in which the computer or network is a necessary part of the crime, these terms are also sometimes used to include traditional crimes, such as fraud, theft, blackmail, forgery, and embezzlement, in which computers or networks are used to facilitate the illicit activity.
Computer crime can broadly be defined as criminal activity involving an information technology infrastructure, including illegal access (unauthorized access), illegal interception (by technical means of non-public transmissions of computer data to, from or within a computer system), data interference (unauthorized damaging, deletion, deterioration, alteration or suppression of computer data), systems interference (interfering with the functioning of a computer system by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering or suppressing computer data), misuse of devices, forgery (ID theft), and electronic fraud.
For more information, check the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_crime
http://www.nsi.org/Library/Compsec/crimecom.html
http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/pubs/compsecurity/glossary.html


http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/641185/types_of_computer_crimes.html