Advance-fee fraud

Popularly know as 419-fraud, advance-fee fraud is one of the oldest and popular scam. Originating in Nigeria in the 1980s, this fraud, circulating through postal mail and fax, quickly crossed the borders within Africa. The unsuspecting email users receive an email message allegedly from a family member of an African dignitary. The writer explains that following the death of the dignitary, a large sum of money will be blocked somewhere. With the user's help, and using his or her financial backing for the funds transfer, the contact says that it would be possible to release the money. A substantial reward supposedly awaits those who accept the contract.

Also in this category of swindling come the email messages that announce to recipients that they have won lottery after their email addresses came up in a draw.

These scams qualify as identity crimes because they involve collecting personal and bank information from the unsuspecting internet users who are gullible enough to respond to these solicitations.

Internal Revenue Service form

This one involves the W-9095 form, sometimes named the W-8888 form. Attached to an email, the fictitious form is often accompanied by a fax number, to which it must be quickly returned. The message also indicates that users may lose certain tax exemptions if they fail to respond within seven days.

Key loggers and password stealers

These terms refer to malicious programs that find their way onto the computers of their victims. Each program gathers certain keystrokes and can collect the name of the user, passwords, and other personal and confidential information. The malware then sends the data to the attackers, who use it fraudulently.

The Trojan family known as Haxdoor, A311 Death, or Backdoor-BAC are one of the most common advanced malware. On an infected machine, each Trojan captures network information and logins and waits for the user to browse a web site (usually financial) that requires authentication. When this occurs, the keylogger collects transaction data, such as username and password, and then sends the stolen data to a dedicated host that enters the stolen data into incremental log files. The first Backdoor-BAC variant appeared in 2003 and have grown manifolds since, both in number and sophistication. Many also come with rootkit capabilities.

Differentiating among keyloggers, password stealers, and "backdoor" applications is not easy. Many backdoors, which allow hackers to remotely control computers, can also collect information. This is why many data-gathering programs are considered backdoors.

Although intended for worthwhile goals, such as parental control, some commercial utilities are occasionally diverted from their original purpose and are used for malicious crimes. Like malware, they are capable of secretly intercepting any computer activity without the user's consent or knowledge.

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