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the society are divided into three categories:
1. Cybercrimes against an individual

2. Cybercrimes against property
3. Cybercrimes against an organisation/society

CYBERCRIMES AGAINST AN INDIVIDUAL

The offence committed against an individual with an intent to harm the reputation of the victim or
cause physical or mental harm using Internet is considered a crime. This crime can be further
classified into various categories which are discussed below.

Spamming
Spamming refers to sending unsolicited bulk emails indiscriminately. Mostly, the spams carry

advertisements. But, some spams act as carriers of malware. Their main purpose is to spread
malware, such as viruses and worms in a computer system. It is recommended not to open any
attachment that comes with spam in order to avoid the danger of getting infected by any malicious
software. Spam wastes the network bandwidth as well as the receiver’s time.

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The term Malware is a combination of two words—malicious and software. Hence, malware refers to
various kinds of harmful, unsolicited, or intrusive software that are written and developed to create
mischief or hurt the users. Different types of malware are virus, trojans, worms, spyware, spam, and so on.

Spamming can be inflicted in any of the following forms.
1. Email spoofing: It is an act of fraudulent emailing, hiding the origin of the email. The sender
intentionally alters parts of the email in order to create an illusion that the email is sent by

some legitimate source, such as a company, bank, magazine, and so on. However, it is sent
by a cybercriminal. The motive behind email spoofing is malicious, like spreading malware
into the system or to gain sensitive personal details.
2. Email bombing: It is a malicious act in which bulky emails are sent repeatedly to a

particular address in a short period of time. The aim is to overflow a user’s inbox.
3. Flooding: It refers to the process of posting the same piece of text multiple times.
Newsgroups and social networking forums get flooded with such texts.

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A cybercriminal is an individual who commits cybercrime, where he/she uses the computer either as a tool
or as a target and sometimes, both.

It is difficult to prevent receiving spam, but you can avoid them to a certain extent by following
the precautions given below.

1. Avoid sharing your email address with unknown people.
2. Never provide your email address at suspicious or compromised websites.

3. It is advisable to delete spams without reading them.
4. Do not click on a link that appears suspicious.

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