Digital media is a form of electronic media where data are stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission of information or to the “end product”, such as digital video, digital photographs, digital signage, digital audio, or digital art. Florida’s digital media industry association, defines digital media as “the creative convergence of digital arts, science, technology and business for human expression, communication, social interaction and education”. The world in which we are living today is fully equipped with digital media products and there are some users which misuses the technology like Cyber Crime. In this blog, we will analyse about how cybercrime is affecting negatively the society and what can be done to protect against cybercrime.

Cybercrime is an ‘umbrella’ term for lots of different types of criminal activities which either take place online or where technology is a means and/or target for the attack. It is one of the fastest growing criminal activities across the world and can affect both individuals and businesses. There are certain different types of cybercrimes which are:

• Hacking personal or public information: A hacker is an individual who uses computer or networking skills to exploits into other technological data with their skills. hacking anyone’s personal identity is a criminal activity.
• Spreading hate and inciting terrorism: any hacker who has any personal or public information could spread hate and incite terrorism which is against the law and can establish a very negative impact on the society.
• Distributing child pornography: anyone could misuse the technology by spreading child pornography which is again against the law and society. it’s also against the personal identity of a child and can also be bullied by other children and society.
• Fake messages and calls: fake calling and messaging is a new trend of stealing other person’s personal information such as bank account details, home address for robbery etc.
• Hacking and shutting down websites: Many hackers hack other countries official public websites to reach out their personal information.

January 2019, More than a third of victims in that period fell prey to the hacking of social media and email accounts. Action Fraud said £34.6m was reported to be stolen from victims between April and September 2018, a 24% increase on the previous six months.The City of London Police, which runs Action Fraud, has warned people to keep separate passwords for online accounts.The figures show 13,357 people in the UK reported cyber crimes over six months.More than 5,000 of those people were hacked via their social media and email accounts, costing victims £14.8m.Commander Karen Baxter said cyber criminals were targeting people’s social media accounts “in a bid to make money and steal personal details”, adding it could leave victims “at risk of identity theft”(BBC, 2019).

In the above data, we analysed that how cyber crimes have increased so much in the past few years, in order to protect ourselves from cyber crime we should always be aware of our activities on social media, we should keep strong passwords so that nobody could exploit to our personal information or profile. no sharing of personal information physically or digitally. cyber crime establishes a negative impact on the society as its a misuse of digital technology.

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