Computer Crime for Theft of Unprotected Data

Discuss about the Computer Crime for Theft of unprotected data.

Introduction

Due to increasing trend of hacking, theft of unprotected data is becoming major issue for the government and non-government organisations along with the individuals in the society.

Data theft is a growing issue in the technological world that is creating an alarming situation in present time. This is an issue of leaking data or data dispute caused by the system administrators and office workers. According to Simmons (2016), the data saved in the database servers, computers, and the authorised users only can access digital devices. However, there are few people, who unethically get access to the system and steal the important information. This theft is increasing in present day business when the hackers sometimes deprive the employees and their confidential data are leaked in front of others (Eck and Weisburd 2015). Now the major problem has arose regarding the ethical value of a person to exploit another person’s information without that person’s consent.

Therefore, in this study the focus will be on the data theft process that is faced in the present time to give protection to the confidential information. The main problem is the security of the data that is kept in the database or in any other system based electrical device. The following study will discuss the problem with an in-depth analysis and then will try to recommend some solutions to overcome this situation.

Discussion

The trend of hacking was started in the decade of 1960s and 1970s when the technology was improving day by day and the science was developing the security system in the business organisations (Reyns and Henson 2015). The time has created the way to emerge this new group of people who are involved in this unethical business to steal the vulnerable data from the government and non-government organisational systems. This creates the problem regarding the data security, which is involving the government organisations in risk as well as lead to the bad reputation before the customers and public. According to Thomas (2015), computer crimes have increased in the present time than before. The hackers have become the threat of the digital society now for their active participations in hacking the information of not only the non-governmental organisations but also of government systems. This data theft issue has become a major issue now that it resulted in a vital way that the organisations have to face not only the losses in the business but sometimes they have to pack up their whole business (Majumdar et al. 2015). Therefore, it is a very concerned issue in the world of technology where the business is related with the information and database based. There are great impacts on the organisational policies and business of this hacking these are –

The main problem regarding the hacking is the loss of business due to interconnected costs. The hacking has caused a huge amount of loss in the business of United Kingdom in the year of 2004. This presented the whole scenario that an organisation can face due to this theft of data. According to Majumdar et al. (2015), the economists stated the statistics that the companies have faced for this. In 2003 the organisations has faced a loss of almost $55 billion. Additionally, in 2011 due to a single hacking on the Play Station of Sony, the company has to face more than $170 million in their business (Din 2015). Not only these organisations, was even Google not saved from this crime. They have to loss almost $500,000 due to hacking in their system in 2005. It is stated by Simpson (2016) that a single hacking can affect the organisations by $600,000 to $7 million per day for the online businesses. It was the value of the year 2011 and it was calculated keeping in mind about the revenue of the operation.

Most of the problems faced by the organizations due to hacking are related to the Insecurity of information. The hackers mainly aim to the data of research, business strategies, financial reports and much more internal confidential information of the organisations (Choi, Scott and LeClair 2016). Therefore, an organisation could be highly affected by the hackers’ activities and encounters loss in business. In case of governmental organizations, information regarding public is the most important information, which should be treated as confidential data. However, the increasing trend of hacking prevents the government from keeping those data safe. In this technological era, every organization is relying on cloud storage in order to store their customers’ information (Carruthers and Charlebois 2015). Therefore, manual documentation of data is becoming an obsolete trend. As a result, loss of those data will directly hamper the integrity of an organization. Now, most of the organizations use efficient encryption methods in order to protect data loss. However, emerging technology helps the hackers to get unauthorised access to the database in order to gain personal benefits.

Intellectual property refers to the intangible property, which is a result of creativity (Majumdar et al. 2015). There are certain legal frameworks to prevent loss of intellectual property such as data protection act. Intellectual properties, which are not abide by any legal framework is known as vulnerable data. There is no legal framework, which can protect vulnerable data like an unprotected intellectual property (Pelton and Singh 2015). However, stealing such information is commonly known as ethical consideration. Now, hackers can easily get access to the vulnerable data, because these are the data, which are not encrypted. The trend of stealing this kind of information prevents the owner to get sufficient recognition. Now, an individual should consider legal frameworks in order to prevent these kinds of information from the hackers (Wolfe 2015).   

Nowadays, organizations are paying more attention to the organizational structure in order to get competitive advantages. Therefore, it is highly important for them to protect the information regarding the same with high quality IT support. Multinational organizations are more concerned about this particular matter and therefore, they have their own experts to prevent the hackers (Masum, Ullah and Azad 2015). However, the SMEs don’t have so much of monitory support. Therefore, it is not possible for those organizations to implement such strategies. As a result the information becomes vulnerable. In UK market, the trend of unethical business practice is becoming an alarming issue. It is getting very much difficult for the SMEs to conduct competitive business due to increasing trend of hacking. Preventions need to be taken by the small-scale organizations in order to encrypt the organizational structure in order to improve organizational profitability and economy of the country as well (Simmons 2016).

An organization needs to maintain their clients’ information in order to build healthy relationship. Therefore, it involves personal data such as residential address and phone numbers. Consumers share that information out of trust and therefore, the company held responsible for keeping the same private (Reyns and Henson 2015). In such business scenario, computer hacking can ruin Organizational reputation by stealing those data and publish into the open forum. This kind of activities can be done by the rival organizations in order to gain market superiority. However, various legal frameworks can be taken under consideration (Majumdar et al. 2015) for an unethical approach.

Now, apart from business, computer hacking can affect individuals’ privacy. For example, if a hacker gains access to someone’s private database, all the personal information can be disclosed. It can affect individuals’ social life (Thomas 2015). The information can be financial or any professional information. However, it is not possible for the individuals to protect these data with efficient encryption model. Therefore, the Decreased Privacy of the organizational data becomes vulnerable and easily accessible by the hackers.    

Conclusion

While concluding, it can be said that the increasing trend of hacking is becoming an alarming issue for individuals, governmental and non-governmental organizations. Organizations keep their database updated with clients’ personal information. On the top of it, they are bound to keep these data secure from the hackers or any external forces. Therefore, organizations nowadays use efficient data encryption methods in order to prevent organizational data. On the other hand, the SMEs are not able to implement an effective encryption method due to lack of financial support. Therefore, the data becomes vulnerable and easily accessible by the hackers, Loss of organizational data can tend the organization to restructure the organizational procedures in order to gain previous position. It is a huge financial loss for an organization to loss control over its database.

In order to avoid such uncertainty, an organization should protect organizational data with end-to-end encryption method. This kind of encryption method helps an organization to prevent any unauthorised access to their database in an effective manner. However, the emerging improvement in technology is becoming strength for the hackers. The organization should keep their encryption process updates in order to make sure that information is in good hand. In case of intellectual property, legal framework should be taken under consideration. In this manner, it is possible to prevent the hackers from gaining control over someone else’s creation. 

References

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Din, M.F., 2015. Breaching and Entering: When Data Scraping Should Be a Federal Computer Hacking Crime. Brook. L. Rev., 81, p.405.

Eck, J.E. and Weisburd, D.L., 2015. Crime places in crime theory. Crime and place: Crime prevention studies, 4.

Majumdar, S., Maiti, A., Bhattacharjee, S. and Nath, A., 2015. A Pilot Study on the Security Issues of Smartphone Systems.

Masum, A.K.M., Ullah, M.C. and Azad, M.A.K., 2015. Information Technology (IT) Ethics in the Light of Islam. IIUC Studies, 9, pp.243-260.

Pelton, J.N. and Singh, I.B., 2015. Ten Essential Rules for Your Cyber Defense. In Digital Defense (pp. 145-155). Springer International Publishing

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Simmons, R., 2016. The Failure of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act: Time to Take a New Approach to Regulating Computer Crime. George Washington Law Review, Forthcoming.

Simpson, M.D., 2016. All Your Data are Belong to Us: Consumer Data Breach Rights and Remedies in an Electronic Exchange Economy. U. Colo. L. Rev., 87, p.669.

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Wolfe, N.A., 2015. Using the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to Secure Public Data Exclusivity. Nw. J. Tech. & Intell. Prop., 13, p.iii.