Due to information technology advancement, cybercrime has drastically changed compared to the 1980s. In the 1980s and 19890s, the most common form of cybercrime was hacking. An example of hacking was at the Lawrence Berkeley National Library where a system administrator realized that an unauthorized person was hacking into the computer system ( Lusthaus, 2018) . Hackers were able to access confidential information and passwords, which they sold to criminals. The other common cybercrime in the 1980s and 90s was the use of worms. The first was the Morris worm created Robert Morris. The worm damaged more than 6,000 computers and $98 million in losses. As these incidents increased, congress passed the first legislation related to hacking, the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986. The law criminalized computer tampering by making it a felony punishable by law. Illegal credit card and telephone use also emerged in the 1990s.
Hacking and computer viruses became more advanced in the early 2000 and beyond. Though hacking and the use of worms was motivated more by curiosity in the 1980s and 90s, the onset of the millennium introduced criminals who used cybercrime for criminal and monetary benefit. For example, the Stuxnet worm, which was discovered in 2010 was the first virus capable of inflicting physical damage on computer systems ( Lusthaus, 2018) . The virus was capable of targeting control systems of industrial facilities. The emergence of social media also encouraged cybercriminals who hack for fun. These groups hack social networks and reveal private data to embarrass websites and reveal inadequate security measures. The leaking of emails belong to the democratic national committee in 2016 is an example of hacking to influence public opinion. Identity theft also become common in the millennium whereby cybercriminals use hacking and other techniques to gain access to personal data such as banking information. Online fraud is the most prevalent cybercrime in the United States. It entails the use of techniques such as hacking, deception, scamming, and identity theft to acquire personal information for criminal purposes.
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As technological transition takes place, criminal law has also evolved to prevent cybercrime. The computer fraud and abuse act is the main law that criminalizes cybercrimes such as identity theft, hacking, and DDoS attacks. However, several statues have been added to the United States Code in response to technological; changes. Section 1029 criminalizes device fraud, while section 2710 criminalizes unlawful access to stored data, which has become common. In response to activities that threaten the integrity of IT systems and infrastructure, laws such as the Wiretrap Act criminalizes the interception, use, or disclosure of intercepted communication. The law also criminalizes the development, possession, and distribution of equipment/devices to be used for criminal interception (Lusthaus, 2018) . Despite the lack of federal laws that criminalizes an organization’s failure to implement cybersecurity measures, there are sector-specific regulations that may lead to enforcement action such as the Gramn-Leach-Bliley Act. States such as Colorado have enacted cybersecurity measures that requires entities to maintain reasonable cybersecurity measures.
Police departments face scarcity of resources that restrict their abilities to have sufficient personnel and technological equipment to fight crime. The rise in workloads, while resources remained constant or declined has contributed selective response to crime. The scarcity of resources has forced police departments to focus only serious crimes, while ignoring others such as cybercrime. Some departments no longer provide services such as response to nuisance calls, house checks, and escorts due to insufficient resources ( Lusthaus, 2018) . These problems can alleviated by deploying information technology such as information systems and computer-aided dispatching. The other solution would be streamlining of police resources to ensure efficiency. Adopting community policing is another strategy that could help mitigate resource shortages in police departments.
Reference
Lusthaus, J. (2018). Industry of anonymity: Inside the business of cybercrime . Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
