Cyber Crime

Introduction

Computer crime, or Cyber crime, refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network. In this the computer may be used or it may be a target. This offence is committed with a criminal attitude in mind and it can harm the victim directly or indirectly may be physically or mentally. These crimes are committed by using modern technologies, internet, mobile phones, sms, mms, tools, software's, emails etc. Computer crimes are of great issues now a day's everywhere. There are lot of users who are becoming the victim of cyber crime; especially students. Cyber crime is rising at an alarming level day by day. It has to be taken care of before it increases more. Today everyone is exposed to Internet and so everyone is becoming a victim of Cyber Crime including from children or individuals to business companies to government activities and society. Security is the biggest issue in each and every thing.

Types of Cyber crime from the huge list include:

Various Cyber Crimes:

phishing is a type of internet fraud that acquires the user's details by fooling them. This includes credit card numbers, bank account details, and theft of passwords, personal information and other important data. The criminals send a link in which the user is asked to fill in all the details, password, and credit card number in some cases. The user fills it and they obtain all the information. However, any particular website which you visit may be fake and bogus and is made for the sole purpose to steal information. Sometimes a similar page is made of some reputed company and then sent to users. They will feel it real and fill the information which they are unaware that they are being hacked. Criminals also use a kind of social engineering to convince users to install some malicious software to get the information.

Phishing can also be done over the phone and compel to do something by giving different schemes or any attractive offers. By this they take all the personal details. Criminals also frighten the users by saying your account will be disabled permanently and so users provide the information. Phishing is growing day by day and people do not come to know that it is a phishing activity. Usually there is a spelling mistake in phishing page. So if you find any spelling mistakes or bad grammar you should understand that it is a fake page or website. The phishing page will look alike as the original page. Payment systems, e- auctions and banking systems are the major targets for criminals. E-bay and pay pal are the most popular targets.

Hacking:

Hacking is a type of a crime where in a personal computer is broken into, so that the criminals can access personal data and important information from computer or any other device. Accessing this information is unauthorized access into any computer without the owner's permission. Hacking is also used in other forms of cyber crime like fraud, terrorism, stalking etc. Hacking is unlike ethical hacking, which many companies use for their security purpose. Government also use them for defence purpose. Hacking is considered to be the most dangerous and punishable act. The criminals use various tools, techniques and software's to breach into the personal computer. Hacking also involves altering or deleting data from database. This could create a big problem for any individual.

Cyber terrorism:

cyber terrorism include internet based attacks in terrorists activities , by attacking many computers specially private computers , transgressing into the networks by using different tools and software's such as codes , files or computer viruses. Cyber terrorists could hack into any company's computer and can alter any data which can be harmful for company and its employees. They can hack into any pharmaceutical's computer and can change the medication which can lead to problems to the people consuming those medicines.

Virus and worm attack:

The program that can replicate itself and make copies and can spread into other programs or which can infect the programs is called VIRUS. Virus can crash the whole system or can delete any of your important files and data. Virus can be in any form - attached in image or any data, via codes in computer, etc . Programs that multiply themselves and spread computer to computer is called as worm. They do not need the host to attach themselves. E.g. love bug virus, which affected atleast 5% of the computers around the globe. The world’s most famous worm was the internet worm let loose by Robert Morris in 1988. This had almost brought a halt to the development of internet.

Denial of Service Attack:

This is an act by the criminal who floods the computer resource with more requests which it can handle. This causes the resource to crash thereby denying access to authorized users. This also occurs by filling the email box with spam mails which makes users difficult to access.

Sale of Illegal articles:

Selling of illegal articles like drugs, wildlife, weapons, banned articles etc. to other countries and terrorist. They can post this information on any website or can even communicate through mails.

Software piracy:

Now-a-days software piracy is in great boom. Everyone use pirated software's as they are made available easily and free of cost, whereas original software's comes with price tag. Illegal copying of genuine software's and selling it in cheap cost or for free is software piracy. Pirated software's can be downloaded from internet, are available in CD/DVD also. As the movie is release, its copy made and sold without the consent of the movie maker. Retail revenue losses are increasing worldwide due to this crime.

Credit card fraud:

While shopping online, the users enter its credit card number and if the website is not secured then attacker can steal the card number and can use for their own purpose in the name of credit card owner.

Who are cyber criminals?

Cyber Crime cases

A small group of hackers traced to southern England gained control of a MoD Skynet military satellite and signalled a security intrusion characterized by officials as "information warfare" in which an enemy attacks by disrupting military communications. In the end, the hackers managed to reprogram the control system before being discovered. Though Scotland Yard's Computer Crimes Unit and the U.S. Air Force worked together to investigate the case, no arrests have been made.

Law enforcement officers arrested six people in the UK and 12 in the US in an FBI-led sting operation in June that netted a total of 24 credit card cyber fraudsters in 13 countries.

Statistics of Cyber Crime

Future of cyber crime