Discuss the major sources of computer crimes.

Major sources of computer crimes originate from various actors with distinct motivations. These include:

• Insiders: Employees, former employees, or trusted partners who exploit their authorized access to systems for personal gain, revenge, or other malicious purposes. They often possess intimate knowledge of an organization's systems and vulnerabilities. Joseph Migga Kizza's Guide to Computer Network Security discusses how insider threats pose a significant risk due to their privileged access.
• External Individuals (Hackers/Crackers): These are individuals who gain unauthorized access to computer systems. Their motives vary from intellectual challenge and notoriety (historically associated with "hacking" as described in A brief history of hacking) to financial theft, data espionage, or disruption. Crackers, a subset of hackers, specifically aim for malicious activities like breaking into systems for criminal purposes.
• Organized Crime: Increasingly, syndicated criminal groups employ cyber means for profit. This includes activities such as financial fraud, identity theft, credit card skimming, ransomware attacks, and large-scale data breaches, as highlighted in reports like the FBI Congressional Report on Cybercrime. These groups are often well-resourced and highly organized.
• Nation-States and Terrorist Groups: Governments engage in cyber warfare, espionage, and sabotage against other nations' critical infrastructure, military systems, or intellectual property. Terrorist groups may use cyber methods for propaganda, recruitment, disruption of services, or to cause widespread panic, a concept explored by Dorothy Denning in her work on Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism.
• Competitors: Rival businesses may engage in industrial espionage to gain a competitive advantage by stealing trade secrets, customer lists, or proprietary information.