Cybercrimes

Cybercrimes:

Any criminal activity that uses a computer either as an instrumentality target or a means to spread further crimes that comes within the scope of cyber crime. A generalized definition of cybercrime may be “unlawful acts wherein the computer is either a tool or target of both”.

Types of Cybercrimes:

1.           Unauthorized Access to Computer Systems or Networks / Hacking: Hacking is an attempt to exploit a computer system or a private network inside a computer. It is the unauthorised access to or control over computer network security systems for some illegal purpose.

2.           Theft of Information Contained in Electronic Form: This includes information stored in computer hard disks, removable storage media etc. Theft may be either by appropriating the data physically or by tampering them through the virtual medium.

3.           E mail Bombing: This kind of activity refers to sending large numbers of mail to the victim, which may be an individual or a company or even mail servers thereby ultimately resulting into crashing.

4.           Data Diddling: This kind of an attack involves altering raw data just before a computer processes it and then changing it back after the processing is completed.

5.           Virus/Worm Attacks: Viruses are programs that attach themselves to a computer or a file and then circulate themselves to other files and to other computers on a network. They usually affect the data on a computer, either by altering or deleting it. E.g. love bug virus, which affected at least 5% of the computers of the globe. The losses were accounted to be $10 million.

Worms unlike viruses do not need the host to attach themselves to. They merely make functional copies of themselves and do this repeatedly till they eat up all the available space on a computer’s memory. The world’s most famous worm was the internet worm let loose on the internet by Robert Morris in 1988 which almost brought development of internet to a complete halt.

6.           Trojan Attacks: It is an unauthorized programme which passively gains control over another’s system by representing itself as an authorised programme. The most common form of installing a Trojan is through e-mail.

7.           Internet Time Thefts: In these kinds of thefts the internet surfing hours of the victim are used up by another person. This is done by gaining access to the login ID and the password.

8.           Email Related Crimes: E-mails are used to send viruses, Trojans etc through emails as an attachment or by sending a link of website which on visiting downloads malicious code, sending threatening emails, defamatory emails etc.

9.           IPR Violations: These include software piracy, copyright infringement, trademark violations, theft of computer source code, patent violations etc.

10.      Banking /Credit Card Related Crimes: In the Corporate World, internet hackers are continually looking for opportunities to compromise a company’s security in order to gain access to confidential banking and financial information.

Securing the Electronic Transactions:

By becoming aware of the risks of internet-based transactions, the organization can acquire technology solution to overcome those risks such as:

·              Follow systematic working procedures i.e., work norms and controlled access to data.

·              Install virus and spy ware protection software in the computer.

·              Install Firewalls that prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network.

·              Store back up data in the secondary storage devices like hard disk etc. A data backup is copying files and folders for the purpose of being able to restore them in case of data loss.

·              Use secure password to access data in the computer.