2. The concept of cybercrime and related concepts

2.4. SUMMARY


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MAIN OUTPUTS FROM THE CHAPTER

·      To understand the issue of cyberattacks and cybercriminality, it is necessary to know the basic terminology that is directly related to the selected area. This chapter presents selected technical as well as legal terms.

·      It is not possible to find an area of ​​human activity, where computer technology or rather information-system, information or communication technology would not be used directly or indirectly.

·      The concept of cybercrime has a similar character to the concepts of “violent crime”, “juvenile delinquency”, “economic crime”, etc. Such terms refer to groups of offences having a certain common factor, such as the manner of execution, the person of the perpetrator (at least generically), etc. In essence, it can be a very diverse mix of offences, connected by a common factor (computer, program, data).

·      Cybercrime can be defined as conduct directed against a computer or, in some cases, computer network, or as conduct in which a computer is used as a tool to commit a crime. An indispensable criterion for the application of the definition of cybercrime is the fact that the computer network, or cyberspace, is then the environment in which this activity takes place.

·      Cybercrime represents those criminal acts where the means of information and communication technologies are:

o   used as a tool for committing a crime,

o   the target of an offender's attack, which is an offence.

o   provided that these devices are used or misused in an information, system, program or communication environment (i.e. in cyberspace).

·      It is not enough to define cybercrime only positively, but it is also necessary to define it by a list of actions that cannot be considered cybercrime in principle.

·      A cyberattack can be defined as any illegal conduct by an attacker in cyberspace that is directed against the interests of another person.

·      Cybersecurity event is “an event that may cause a breach in information security in information systems or a breach in security of services or security and integrity of electronic communications networks.”

·      Computer data means “any expression of facts, information or concepts in a form suitable for processing in a computer system, including a program capable of causing a computer system to perform a function."

·      Information “is data that has been processed into a form useful to a recipient. So every piece of information is a piece of data, but any stored data doesn't necessarily become information."


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KEY WORDS TO REMEMBER

  • cybercrime
  • cyberattack
  • cybersecurity event
  • crime
  • cyberspace

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KNOWLEDGE CHECK QUESTIONS        

  • What is cybercrime?
  • What is not cybercrime?
  • What is a cyberattack?
  • What is the difference between cybercrime and cyberattack?
  • What is the difference between data and information?
  • What is the CIA triad?