mage to a computer system. The motivations behind crackers' actions are either profits, revenge, or a mixture of the two. Other computer criminals include terrorists, company competitors, and aggravated employees. Aggravated employees are a company's worst nightmare since they have easy access to the companys system, and are usually fired or leave on bad terms. Competitors will often do whatever is necessary to get an edge on their industry leaders by riffling through their competitors' trash, bugging phone lines, and now breaking into their competitors' networks in an attempt to gather inside information. Terrorists are becoming more computer literate because they realize the amount of information regarding the government defense are stored and found on computers. Terrorists are also targeting technology and utility companies because they realize the damage caused would be wide spread and devastating. There are six common types of computer attacks:Military/Intelligence AttacksBusiness AttacksFinancial AttacksTerrorist AttacksGrudge AttacksReasonless AttacksComputer criminals have broken into the military's system many times and learned such valuable information as military exercises, satellite repositioning systems, FBI/CIA investigations, etc. Our national security is at jeopardy simply because the militarys system is susceptible to computer crime just as is any network system. The U. S. Air Force once hired a hacker to try to break into their systems. The hacker was successful at the break-in and reported it to military officials. Two weeks later, he was asked to try to break into the system again. This time it only took fifteen seconds to get back into the system. The government needs to find a way to protect their information, themselves, and us more securely. Attacks on businesses are rapidly becoming more widespread. 54% of U. S. companies reported losses related to computer crimes. Most of these crimes committed we...
