Cyberattacks Causes

There are several causes and effects of cyberattacks, the major causes are economical, personal and ideological. “A cyberattack is an attack launched from one computer or more computers against another computer, multiple computers or networks, consisting of 3 major types, phishing, malware, and denial of service” (Fruhlinger). On a law definition “a cyberattack or cybercrime, refers to any illegal action that involves a network or computer that may have been used to commit a crime or may be the target of a crime” (Laws). The first personal computer, similar to what we have today, was the IBM PC, released in 1981 (Computer hope). It wasn’t until 1986 when the computer fraud and abuse act was established under the section 1030(a)(5)(A); law that

Economical motivated attacks are one of the major causes, as it is the case in many crimes committed outside the internet. Money has always been a major motivator for many of the cyber criminals or hackers. Because the danger of committing a crime is less apparent when hiding behind a network, the perception of low risk motivates hackers to engage in criminal activities (It Still Works). Economically motivated hackers, usually tamper with date on the internet or systems, especially, e-commerce and e-banking data for the commitment of fraud and swindling money off unsuspecting customers. Another cause of cyberattacks is the personal motivated hacker, where attacks are generally related to personal emotions and grudges. According to It Still Works, hackers in this area range from a disgruntled employee installing a virus in an office to a jealous boyfriend hacking into a girlfriend’s social media account, or a teenager taking down a school website just to prove that he could do it (It Still Works). The FBI consider online predator to fall into this category as well, since areas of the internet, such as social networks are included (FBI). Finally, the third major cause of cyberattacks are ideological motivated hackers, these attacks are conducted with the intention to be perceived as ethic, ideological or moral. The hacking under this cause believe that

As an individual, cyberattacks compromise the personal information and financial information of any individual that finally lead to identity theft. An estimate of cyberattacks towards banking accounts alone, pull nearly 700 million dollars per year (It Still Works). On a company the impact of a cyberattack can mean a loss of revenue, loss that can be caused for an outside party by obtaining sensitive financial information. An e-commerce becomes also compromised if the website becomes unavailable to consumers because valuable incomes is lost. Piracy has had major effects in entertainment, music and software, claims of damages are hard to estimate and even harder to verify making losses of hundreds of millions to hundreds of billions every year. Companies that get hacked aside from being hacked also gain damage reputation which makes customers to lose trust, being afraid that their information can be exposed in the future (It Still Works). Nations are also affected by cyberattacks and causes serious damage by exposing confidential information, political issues, and gain of military intelligence. As mentioned by the FBI, cyber threats to our nation have a high intent and high capability to inflict damage or death in the U.S