Hacking

Hacking is defined as any access to a computer, computer system, or computer network without the permission of either the rightful owner or the person in charge of them. According to the British National Crime Agency Cyber Crime Assessment 2016 report, cybercrime accounted for 53% of all crimes in 2015. It is expected that cybercrime will continue to develop and evolve into a highly lucrative and well-organized enterprise. Cybercriminals, whether state-sponsored or not, are even beginning to devote funds to research and development. In other words, cybercrime has become an industry. Criminals are increasingly moving online. Terrorist groups are also beginning to exploit cybercrime to fund their mandates.

A recent form of cybercrime is ransomware, a form of malware that holds people’s data files hostage until ...