Computer fraud

There are computer crime statutes in all but three states and at Federal level there is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act 1986. 

The Law Commission defined computer fraud as conduct which involves the manipulation of a computer, by whatever method, in order dishonestly to obtain money, property, or some other advantage of value, or to cause loss. Computer fraud had previously been studied by the Audit Commission in their attempt to assess the extent of crime involving computers. They had sub-divided computer fraud into three categories which they called input frauds, output frauds, and program frauds. 

Fear of Fraud It is illuminating that there are companies that lock the input to a computer system (specifically a so-called LIMS, a Laboratory Information Management System) in such a manner that it takes the supervisor s password and signature to correct a missed keystroke, even if this is noticed before the (Enter) key is pressed. If the unwitnessed use of the (Backspace) key betrays malicious intent to falsify raw data, then every scientist should be in jail. 

Technology is one of many trends constantly affecting computer validation. One area requiring special attention is the introduction of expert systems into the FDA-regulated environment. The simplest form of artificial intelligence generally used in applications (such as mortgages, credit card authorization, fraud detection, e-commerce, personalization) is the rule-based system, also known as the expert system (ES). 

External fraud is an act committed by a third party that leads to data theft, data loss, and function disruption. People with technology skills can access (hack) the computer systems of pharmacies to steal or manipulate patient information for financial or nonfinancial reasons. For example, cell phone service provider T-Mobile experienced ongoing security problems that led to the publication of celebrity Paris Hiltons personal information and the telephone numbers of many Hollywood stars (Brian, 2005). One can only imagine the problems that could arise if patient data contained in a pharmacy s database were to be exposed, stolen, or manipulated. 

Also see Hehre, W.J. Pau, C.F. Hout Jr., R.F. Fraud, M.M. Molecular Modeling - Computer Aided Descriptions of Molecular Structure and Reactivity, Wiley, New York, 1987. 

Y. Fraud and B. Javidi, Digital three-dimensional image correlation by use of computer-reconstructed integral imaging, Appl. Opt. 41, 5488 (2002). 

It should be demonstrated that measmes have been taken to protect the computer based system throughout its entire lifetime against physical attack, intentional and non-intentional intrusion, fraud, virases and so on [12,13]. Safety systems should not be coimected to external networks when justification cannot be made that it is safe to do so. 

An input fraud occurs where a person dishonestly enters false data into a computer, or dishonestly suppresses or amends data as it is keyed in. This was found by the Audit Commission to be by far the most common type of fraud identified by respondents to their survey. This type of activity is not very sophisticated and is merely a variant on the type of false accounting which occurs regularly outside the field of computing and should... 

Input fraud is often followed by output fraud, which involves the suppression or alteration of data which emerges from a computer. Output fraud is often used to try to conceal an input fraud, although the two do not always go together. For example, an accounts clerk who has misappropriated funds will commit an output fraud by suppressing the computer balance reports in order to hide the discrepancies. 

It was stated at the symposium that "a computing system may be termed safe if it will not cause death or injury" and that "it may be termed secure if it will not betray any secrets". Whilst some people prefer definitions such as "security is the prevention of fraud or error", one thing that can be agreed is that security concerns the protection of information against some threat, whereas safety concerns the protection of people against some hazard. 

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