Computer crime categories: Computer as Target, Computer as Storage Device, Computer as Communication
Computer crimes are usually grouped into three categories. These categories are based on how a computer is being used in the crime. The categories are:
- Computer as target
- Computer as communication
- Computer as a storage device
Computer as target
In this category, a computer becomes an ‘object’ of a crime. Briefly, the computer is used by the offender to collect information or damage the files or the operating system programs. Some offenses that are related to this category are theft of intellectual property, theft of customer information, unlawful access to government digital records, unlawful change of data in the database and many other offences that need a computer and its resources accessed directly.
Computer as communication
A computer becomes a communication tool in a crime when it is used as a link in between the ‘attacker computer’ and the ‘victim computer’. An example of such scenario is when a computer is used as a ‘zombie’ machine in performing denial-of-service (DOS) attacks to other computer systems. In a larger scale, distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks use many ‘zombie’ machines to bring down a service. In both these scenarios, the ‘zombies’ have been used as communication tools for the attack.
Computer as storage device
A computer has been used as a storage device in a crime when the data or files contained in the computer are illegally stored. Some forms of files are child pornography images, hacking programs, virus/malware programs, or data that has been unlawfully obtained from other sources.
