Person

• Cyber crimes against the person covers a range of activities. Harassment via email or cyber-stalking are examples of a crime directed at one person. The activity known as "grooming," where an adult lures a young person into meeting him, is another example of this. Identity theft also targets an individual, but the reasons for them being victimized may be personal or purely random. Distributing pornography, especially child pornography, is one of the most serious cyber crimes, with a growing number of police units dedicated to tracking down these criminals. Similarly, trafficking adults or children via the Internet is another personal crime.
  
  

Property

• Property theft occurs in cyber space, as well as everyday life. However, the type of property stolen is somewhat different. A cyber criminal can't snatch a bag but he can take the contents of your bank account. One widespread method of getting people's bank account details is the money transfer email scam. People receive emails requesting help with transferring funds from another country. Hacking into company websites is property trespass, and stealing information is property theft. Malware and virus attacks on computer networks damage hardware and software and is a cyber version of vandalism.
  
  

Government

• Cyber crimes against governments constitute another level of crime. There are fewer occurrences of crime in this category, perhaps because the consequences are potentially so devastating. Cyber terrorism is the most serious type of crime in this category. Cyber terrorism threats may come from terrorist groups or from legitimate governments. Hacking into a government website, particularly the military sites, is one manifestation of cyber terrorism. Circulating propaganda that panics the population is another method of cyber terrorism.
  
  

Spam and Phishing

• Spam and phishing are the crimes that most Internet users are likely to encounter. Most email services now have robust spam filters, but prior to this, many people's mail boxes were inundated with spam. These unsolicited emails are unlawful in some places, and in the U.S., the anti-spam law "CAN-SPAM Act 2003" exists to protect email users. Phishing criminals try to get passwords and other security information out of Internet users, often through directing people to fake versions of legitimate websites. The phishing sites look authentic, and users are frequently duped into entering personal details.