The Internet is a world of wonders and mysteries; it has opened the gates to the floods of information and knowledge for mankind. But all these temptations are like a beehive. Honey is beneficial; but a slight mishandling can cause a lot of problems. Similarly, many people on the Internet can make online life a little less fascinating. Stealing credit card numbers and personal data and harassing people with spam messages are certain examples of cyber crimes. The degree of these crimes varies with respect to the extent of damage and and the penalty for each of them is also defined accordingly by international governing bodies. Nadeen Nasir Grade 10 student International Indian School Jeddah The Internet is growing rapidly and it has given rise to new opportunities in every field we can think of. There are two sides to a coin; the Internet also has its own disadvantages. One of the major disadvantages are cybercrimes – illegal activities committed online. Computers today are being misused for illegal activities like e-mail espionage, credit card fraud, spams, software privacy and so on, which invade our privacy and offend our senses. Hacking is amongst the gravest of cybercrimes known to date. Jabair Ali Mohammed Student of Mechanical Engineering King Saud University, Riyadh In the last decade or so we have witnessed major progress in the development of various technologies in almost all areas of human life, in both developed and developing countries. Specifically, Information Technology has advanced so well that almost everyone everywhere uses computers for their day-to-day activities. However, daily usage of computers for various aspects of life makes one vulnerable to computer crimes. Cyber crime is the latest and perhaps the most complicated problem in the cyber world. And it is necessary to raise awareness about certain cyber crimes and to minimize its effect by ensuring that all computing students and users have widespread knowledge about how to deal with cyber crimes. Nada Nisar Ahmed Grade 12 student International Indian School Jeddah Cybercrime or computer-related criminal activities are where things fraud, spam, identity theft, computer viruses, hacking, copyright infringement and child pornography take place within computer networks. In this fast developing world, hacking has become common due to the unlimited and vast use of the Internet and boosted by the growing awareness of young people. The problem lies with the users, who unknowingly end up giving vital personal details to various websites which are not verified. Appropriate measures can be taken such as researching an online company before making any purchases, reviewing credit card and bank statements regularly and protecting computer systems from malware attacks.
