Cyber Crime

11. Never take me for granted. I will drop you in a

heartbeat.
12. My time is as important as my funds maybe
more.
13. Help me integrate link stuff together to increase
the efficiency of my life.
14. Life is complex: Make service simple. Life is harried:
Make service calm. Life can be shallow: Make service have resonance and depth. Life can be painful:
Make service joyful. Life is too fast: Help me keep
up. Life can be lonely: Make service a value connection. (quoted in Zemke, 2002, p. 49)
SEE ALSO

Marketing

B I B L I O G R A PH Y

Albrecht, Karl, and Zemke, Ron (2002). Service America in the

new economy (rev. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Bell, Chip R. (2000). Customer love: Attracting and keeping customers for life. Provo, UT: Executive Excellence.
Hoffman, K. Douglass (2006). Marketing principles and best
practices (3rd ed.). Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western.
Lascu, Dana-Nicoleta, and Clow, Kenneth E. (2004). Marketing
frontiers: Concepts and tools. Cincinnati: Atomic Dog.
Lovelock, Christopher, and Wirtz, Jochen (2004). Services marketing: People, technology, strategy (5th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Manning, Gerald L., and Reece, Barry L. (2004). Selling today:
Creating customer value (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Pearson Prentice Hall.
Pride, William M., and Ferrell, O. C. (2006). Marketing concepts
and strategies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Reece, Barry L., and Brandt, Rhonda (2005). Effective human
relations: Personal and organizational applications (9th ed.).
Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Sewell, Carl, and Brown, Paul B. (2002). Customers for life: How
to turn that one-time buyer into a lifetime customer (rev. ed.).
New York: Doubleday.
Solomon, Michael R., Marshall, Greg W., and Stuart, Elnora W.
(2006). Marketing: Real people, real choices (4th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Zemke, Ron (2002). The customer service revolution. Training,
39(7), 4449.

Thomas Baird
Barry L. Reece

CYBER CRIME
Cyber crime refers to criminal conduct occurring in
cyberspacecomputerized, networked environments
such as those in an office or on the Internet and the World

Wide Web. According to U.S. law, cyber crimes have been

committed if someone intentionally accesses a network
facility without authorization or intentionally exceeds his
or her given level of authorization to access that facility. If
the crime is committed for commercial advantage, malicious destruction, private commercial gain, or in furtherance of any criminal act, the punishment is a fine and/or
imprisonment for up to five years for a first offense. For
any subsequent offense, the punishment is a fine and/or
imprisonment for up to ten years.
TYPES OF CYBER CRIMES

Cyber crimes fall into three categories: (1) when computers or computer systems are the targets of crimes, such as
hacking, denial of service, and viruses and Trojan horses;
(2) when computers are the medium by which criminal
activity is committed, such as phishing, sniffing, spamming, and spoofing; and (3) when computers are abused
by rogue employees to illegally access organizational networks and steal valuable information. The following is a
discussion of these cyber crimes.
Crimes against Computers and Computer Systems.
Hacking: Breaking into a computer network or Web
site such as a banks intranet by using a software
program that can generate multiple login usernames
and passwords until a valid combination is found
and access is granted. Once in the system, the
hacker is able to steal, alter, or delete any files within
the system.
Denial of service: By using a computer to flood a
given Web site with so much useless traffic (e-mail,
interactions, etc.) the site becomes frozen and stops
the regular service thus losing business for a period.
Viruses, worms, and Trojan horses: Small, malicious
software programs that are sent as attachments to emails with the intent of paralyzing the receiving
computer(s). Once an e-mail recipient opens such
an attachment, the virus, worm, or Trojan horse is
released, disabling computers and replicating itself
by contaminating the whole e-mail system.
Crimes Using Computers to Deceive Users.
Phishing: Cyber criminals send legitimate looking emails to customers of banks and credit card companies asking them to update their account
information by clicking on a Web link that sends
the customer to an official-looking but actually fake
site. By doing so, the criminals can steal customers
account information and thus masquerade as that
customer.

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Cyber Crime

Sniffing: Criminals use their software to monitor the

traffic on a Web site and steal valuable information
traveling through it.
Spamming: The unethical sending of millions of email promotions to recipients who have never asked
for the information. Spamming becomes illegal
when a person sends numerous unsolicited e-mails
containing illegal or objectionable messages such as
pornography, threats, or harassments.
Spoofing: The practice of deceiving online shoppers
with a fake site of a legitimate company in order to
get their identities and credit card numbers.
Crimes by Employees. Organizations need to be increasingly aware of employees who exceed authorization to
access their company network and steal information for
criminal use.
COUNTERMEASURES

Users need to use caution before handing over personal

information and should think twice before updating
information when they have not initiated the transaction.
To protect individual computers, corporate networks, and
Web sites, the following measures should be adopted: (1)
users (both institutions and individuals) should install
antivirus software and firewalls on their computers; (2)

188

users should not use their birthday, social security number, or phone number as passwords to their accounts; (3)
users should use different passwords for different accounts
and change them periodically; (4) users should not open
e-mail attachments or click on links from unknown
sources; (5) to prevent phishing and spoofing, consumers
should check Web sites legitimacy and security before giving personal information and credit card numbers; (6)
users should monitor their credit card usage and immediately report any unfamiliar transactions; (7) organizations
should have clearly defined employee Internet policies;
and (8) users should immediately report to the police
when they experience a cyber crime.
SEE ALSO

Identity Theft

B I B L I O G R A PH Y

Awad, Elias M. (2004). Electronic commerce: From vision to fulfillment (2nd ed.). Boston: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
McNurlin, Barbara C., and Sprague, Ralph H., Jr. (2004). Information systems management in practice (6th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
U.S. Department of Justice (2005). United States code annotated:
Title 18. Crimes and criminal procedure. Retrieved December
1, 2005, from http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime

Jensen J. Zhao

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BUSINESS AND FINANCE, SECOND EDITION