Advances in telecommunications and in computer technology have brought us to the

information revolution. The rapid advancement of the telephone, cable,

satellite and computer networks, combined with the help of technological

breakthroughs in computer processing speed, and information storage, has lead us

to the latest revolution, and also the newest style of crime, "computer crime".

The following information will provide you with evidence that without reasonable

doubt, computer crime is on the increase in the following areas: hackers,

hardware theft, software piracy and the information highway. This information

is gathered from expert sources such as researchers, journalists, and others

involved in the field.

Computer crimes are often heard a lot about in the news. When you ask someone

why he/she robbed banks, they world replied, "Because that's where the money

is." Today's criminals have learned where the money is. Instead of settling

for a few thousand dollars in a bank robbery, those with enough computer

knowledge can walk away from a computer crime with many millions. The National

Computer Crimes Squad estimates that between 85 and 97 percent of computer

crimes are not even detected. Fewer than 10 percent of all computer crimes are

reported this is mainly because organizations fear that their employees, clients,

and stockholders will lose faith in them if they admit that their computers have

been attacked. And few of the crimes that are reported are ever solved.

Hacking was once a term that was used to describe someone with a great deal of

knowledge with computers. Since then the definition has seriously changed. In

every neighborhood there are criminals, so you could say that hackers are the

criminals of the computers around us. There has been a great increase in the

number of computer break-ins since the Internet became popular.

How serious is hacking? In 1989, the Computer Emergency Response Team, a

organization that monitors computer security issues in North America said that

they had 132 cases involving computer break-ins. In 1994 alone they had some

2,341 cases, that's almost an 1800% increase in just 5 years.