CYBERCRIME

 

What is Cybercrime?

Cybercrime is a criminal activity that either targets or uses a computer, a computer network, or a networked device. Most, but not all, cybercrime is committed by cybercriminals or hackers who want to make money. Cybercrime is carried out by individuals or organizations.

Some cybercriminals are organized, use advanced techniques, and are highly technically skilled. Others are novice hackers.

Rarely, cybercrime aims to damage computers for reasons other than profit. These could be political or personal.

Types of cybercrime:

1.     Social Engineering attack

·       Baiting

·       Pretexting

·       Phishing

·       Quid pro quo

·       Spear Phishing

·       Honey trap

·       Scareware

2.     Identity Theft

3.     Espionage

4.     Obscene Publication

5.     Cyber Attacks

1.  Social Engineering Attack

Social engineering attack is one of the easiest attacks in Cyber Crime, in recent years the rate of social engineering attacks has increased due to the lack of awareness that it is much easier to targets humans to avid security. In social engineering attacks, the hacker uses interaction with a scapegoat(target) before it goes to the slaughterhouse.

The attackers use psychological manipulation to make the person do mistakes and reveal the information, Social engineering is a popular tactic among hackers because after getting the weakness of the target it is often easier to exploit users, from there, the hacker can design an attack based on information collected and exploit the weakness, there is no particular way to carry out a social engineering attacker, a hacker may try different techniques depending on the victim’s nature.

If the attack is successful, then the hacker has access to all his/her sensitive data- confidential data, such as credit card banking information and other valuable data. In social engineering attacks, there are several types of cyber-attacks used by hackers to gain access to protected systems or networks these are as follows.

·       Baiting: 

Baiting is when an attacker leaves a malware-infected physical device, such as a USB flash drive, inconspicuous areas where it is sure to be found. The finder then picks up the device and loads it onto his or her computer, unintentionally installing the malware. Baiting scams don’t necessarily have to be carried out in the physical world. Online forms of baiting consist of enticing ads that lead to malicious sites or that encourage users to download a malware-infected application.

·       Pretexting:

In this hackers used to obtain personal information through the frivolous crafted lies, on the bridge of lies attacker establishing trust with the victim by impersonating co-workers, bank officials, police, etc. others who have right to know authority. The ask query about you took and gather important information and personal data of yours.

·       Phishing: 

A new form of identity theft is phishing, which occurs when scammers send mass E-mails posing as banks, credit card companies, or popular commercial websites, asking recipients to confirm or update personal and financial information in a hyperlink to a look-alike Websites for the spoofed company, and usually threaten suspension or deactivation of accounts for non-compliance. The message is meant to trick the recipient into sharing personal or financial information or clicking on a link that installs malware.

·       Quid pro quo: 

A quid pro quo attack is one in which the social engineer pretends to provide something in exchange for the target’s information or assistance. For instance, a hacker calls a selection of random numbers within an organization and pretends to be calling back from tech support. Eventually, the hacker will find someone with a legitimate tech issue who they will then pretend to help. Through this, the hacker can have the target type in the commands to launch malware or can collect password information.

·       Spear Phishing: 

This is a more targeted version of the phishing scam whereby an attacker chooses specific individuals or enterprises. They then tailor their messages based on characteristics, job positions, and contacts belonging to their victims to make their attack less conspicuous. Spear phishing requires much more effort on behalf of the perpetrator and may take weeks and months to pull off. They’re much harder to detect and have better success rates if done skillfully. A spear-phishing scenario might involve an attacker who, in impersonating an organization’s IT consultant, sends an email to one or more employees. It’s worded and signed exactly as the consultant normally does, thereby deceiving recipients into thinking it’s an authentic message. The message prompts recipients to change their password and provides them with a link that redirects them to a malicious page where the attacker now captures their credentials. 

·       Honey trap:

An attack in which the social engineer pretends to be an attractive person to interact with a person online, fake an online relationship, and gather sensitive information through that relationship.

·       Scareware: 

Scareware involves victims being bombarded with false alarms and fictitious threats. Users are deceived to think their system is infected with malware, prompting them to install software that has no real benefit (other than for the perpetrator) or is malware itself. Scareware is also referred to as deception software, rogue scanner software, and fraudware. A common scareware example is the legitimate-looking pop-up banners appearing in your browser while surfing the web, displaying such text as, “Your computer may be infected with harmful spyware programs.” It either offers to install the tool (often malware-infected) for you or will direct you to a malicious site where your computer becomes infected. Scareware is also distributed via spam email that doles out bogus warnings or makes offers for users to buy worthless/harmful services.

2.    Identity Theft

E-theft may be understood as an extension of theft in the normal legal parlance to an online atmosphere. Identity theft is the unauthorized collection and fraudulent use of key pieces of information, such as bank account numbers and passwords, to impersonate someone else. Identity Theft Cyber Crime is a truly modern crime, being crafted out of the sight of, and often beyond the effective reach of, the victim.

It is carried out by compromising electronic data systems, obtaining false primary documents, directing mail to the new address, obtaining new credit accounts, and improperly charging existing ones. It can be accomplished by a neighbor next door or criminals from thousands of miles away.

3.    Espionage

Cyber-espionage refers to malicious activities aimed at penetrating a computer system for purposes of extracting sensitive or protected information for economic, technical, or intelligence gain. Technological developments have fostered the growth of Cyber espionage is making it increasingly easy for malign actors — whether malevolent insiders, foreign intelligence services, or hackers for hire — to steal sensitive information with instant results, minimal cost, and relative anonymity.

In the case of economic espionage, the primary focus is on the infiltration and theft of sensitive data from private companies. Certain underground hacking communities in cyberspace encourage tool sharing, code swapping, and the proliferation of malicious software, as well as facilitating black-markets trading in stolen data. These clandestine forums consist of an array of programmers who understand network protocols, can write code, create viruses, malware, and rootkits, and who may even operate botnet infrastructures.

Some technicians compile, package, and effectively utilize pre-built, open-source, hacking tools, the so-called novice ‘script-kiddies’ who dabble with the execution of basic code, and surreptitious traders who actually buy and sell stolen data. It is also extremely likely that nation-states covertly utilize these forums. The majority of sophisticated cyber-espionage attacks suggest Chinese, Russian, or Israeli involvement, although directly attributing responsibility for these incidents has proven recurrently nebulous and, often, politically strenuous.

The Intentional global distribution and obscurity of attacks, via numerous proxy servers across multiple countries, has meant competent hackers enjoy relative anonymity in committing cyber-espionage. Although often framed as an exclusively technical problem, the attribution issue is far more multifarious. Attempts have been further confounded by the blurring of criminal and political acts, as well as conventional notions of ‘state’ and ‘non-state’ actors.

4.    Obscene Publication

The Internet has given rise to a new industry for the online publication and consumption of obscene materials. Millions of people around the world are visiting websites catering to this product. These Internet sites represent the largest growth sector of the digital economy. An obscene publication is generally understood to be any publication whose dominant characteristic is the undue exploitation of sex, or of sex together with crime, horror, cruelty, or violence.

Whether a publication’s dominant theme is the undue exploitation of sex is determined by reference to a “social standards” test. The obscene article contains an image or a description of sexual behavior which Is, which arguably, carries the risk that viewers of the material may be encouraged or corrupted into such practices. Obscene publication violates the law and leads to the general corruption of morals.

The exhibition of an obscene picture is an indictable offense in law if it is averred that the picture was exhibited to sundry persons for money. It is a crime against the modesty of women and children. Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code is related to the punishment for such an offense. Even though the Indian Penal Code prohibits pornography the implementation of this prohibition becomes a problem when it comes to the internet.

However, some argue that for something to be obscene it must be shown that the average person, applying contemporary community standards and viewing the material, would find it depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way; and that it lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Internet pornography detracts from the social and economic benefits of e-commerce, and the government is being driven to regulate the Internet to control these harmful practices. However, there appears to be no single solution to the regulation of illegal and harmful content on the Internet because the exact definition of offenses related to obscene publications and what is considered harmful varies from one country to another.

5.    Cyber Attacks

Distributed denial of services (DoS) attacks have been the most prevalent form of cybercrime in recent years. In these cybercrime attacks, coordinated botnets-collections of thousands of “zombies” computers hijacked by insidious viruses-overwhelm servers by ‘systematically visiting designated websites.

Cyber-attacks against critical infrastructures can have far-reaching effects on businesses, governments, and even on societies, for example, the use of malware or botnet large-scale attacks against information and communication technology infrastructure can disrupt the provision of vital goods or services. These kinds of attacks can also disrupt the maintenance of other critical infrastructures, such as transport or energy networks.

Effects of Cybercrime:

According to a 2018 report published by McAfee, the economic impact of cybercrimes is estimated to cost the global economy nearly $600 billion annually. Financial loss is one of the obvious effects of cybercrimes, and it can be quite significant.

But cybercrimes also have several other disastrous consequences for businesses such as:

• Investor perception can become a huge problem after a security breach causing a drop in the value of businesses.
• Businesses may also face increased costs for borrowing and raising more capital can be challenging as well after a security breach.
• Loss of sensitive customer data can result in penalties and fines for failing to protect customer data. Businesses may be sued over data breaches.
• Due to loss of reputation and damaged brand identity after a cyberattack, customers’ trust in a business will decline. Businesses not only end up losing current customers but also find it difficult to gain new customers.
• Direct costs may also be incurred such as the cost of hiring cybersecurity companies for remediation, increased insurance premium costs, public relations (PR), and other services related to the attack.

Nowadays, Cyber Crime has been evolving rapidly in India, without involving deadly weapons, they used technology or electronic items to commit crimes where a computer or network is the source with the help of these sources they commit crime and fudge anybody in the world, after using latest technology like artificial intelligence, Bigdata Analytics and etc, these criminals are becoming more intellect day by day and they are not easily traceable.

According to Symantec crop, Cyber Crime in India between 2012 and 2017 is raised up to 457%, and India is among the top five countries dominance by Cybercriminals due to the lack of awareness amongst people, but the number of internet users is increasing day by day after US and China, India is at third place.

How to Prevent Cyber Crimes?

• Backup all data, system, and considerations: 

This enables data stored earlier to assist businesses in recovering from an unplanned event.

• Enforce concrete security and keep it up to date: 

Choose a firewall with features that protect against malicious hackers, malware, and viruses. This enables businesses to identify and respond to threats more quickly. 

• Never give out personal information to a stranger: 

They can use the information to commit fraud.

• Check security settings to prevent cybercrime: 

A cyber firewall checks your network settings to see if anyone has logged into your computer.

• Using antivirus software: 

Using antivirus software helps to recognize any threat or malware before it infects the computer system. Never use cracked software as it may impose the serious risk of data loss or malware attack.

• When visiting unauthorized websites, keep your information secure: 

Using phishing websites, information can easily bypass the data.

• Use virtual private networks (VPNs): 

VPNs enable us to hide our IP addresses.

• Restriction on access to your most valuable data: 

Make a folder, if possible, so that no one can see confidential documents.

                                   Thank You!

                                                                  -  Manisha!