Cybersecurity / Cybercrime

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Cybercrime and CybersecurityDora (age 14, Croatia)

Living in the world where technology takes up most of our lifes, there are people who exploit technology to do crimes. Crimes committed with the use of digital technology - the computer and the internet, the mobile phone or other telecommunication means -, are called cybercrimes. The reasons a criminal would be commiting a crime with the use of technology would most likely be the anonymity and the fast way to target hundreds of millions of potential victims: sometimes one click away. Some forms of cybercrime would be identity theft where the criminal gains access to the victim's identity and use it to commit crimes, phishing, where the criminal tries to gain passwords, PUP's(Potentially unwanted programs) which are programs that uninstall important software, illegal content like child pornography or violent videos, and scams which trick the victim into thinking they've won something, in order to willingly send personal information, click on links or open documents which install viruses.

How can we protect ourselves from cybercrime?. That's where cybersecurity comes in. Cybersecurity is, as indicated in it's name, a field that focuses on the protection of devices from any form of cybercrime. Some forms of cybersecurity you could see in your everyday lives, like systems telling you to choose a strong password, or your computer warning you to upgrade your virus protection.

The reason why we need to know how to use cybersecurity measures is to lower our chances of being victims of cybercrime. Since the amount of cybercrimes is growing, we should teach more about cybersecurity in schools, workplaces and workshops. Those lessons should focus on how we can protect ourselves from cybercrime by teaching how to create good passwords, what information we can share on the Internet and what we shouldn't, and how to spot sites and emails that should be avoided, such as emails giving you offers that are too good to be true, fake e-commerce or e-banking sites, people offering you large sums of money or winning lotteries. Also, the criminals should be punished even when their act isn't illegal in their country, but is considered a crime in the victim's country. The laws should be changed so that any form of cybercrime is declared illegal.