Cybercrime is a fast-growing area of crime. More and more criminals are exploiting the speed, convenience and anonymity of the Internet to commit a diverse range of criminal activities that know no borders, either physical or virtual.
These crimes can be divided into three broad areas:
Attacks against computer hardware and software, for example, botnets, malware and network intrusion;
Financial crimes and corruption, such as online fraud, penetration of online financial services and phishing;
Abuse, in the form of grooming or ‘sexploitation', especially crimes against children.
See advice about the Heartbleed bug and about how to stay safe on the Internet.