Cyber crimes: Threats and protection

Information Technology has grown tremendously during the last two decades and became the main source of knowledge. The latest information and the current technology are available through the Internet making it the most valuable source of information to almost all people from the novice to the expert in all fields of knowledge. Yet with the usefulness and importance of the Internet, the misuse and the cyber crime become more evident. In this paper we try to explore some of these cyber crimes and the ways to protect from them. We discuss different types of cyber crimes namely: social engineering-phishing, email spoofing and pharming. We also discuss the ways to protect ourselves from such crimes with emphasis on biometrics.