Essays

Cyber crime is the new breed of crime, which is either perpetrated using computers, or is otherwise related to them. Its origin can be traced to the growing dependence on computers in modern life. Cyber crime has assumed sinister implications today as everything from microwave ovens and refrigerators to nuclear power plants is being run on computers.

Today, the world is moving towards a point where everything from banking, stock exchanges, air traffic control, telephones to electric power, health care, welfare and education depends on software. This exponential growth, and the increase in the capacity and accessibility of computers coupled with the decrease in cost, has brought about revolutionary changes in every aspect of human civilization, including crime. As a result, the increased capacities of information systems today come at the cost of increased vulnerability. Information technology has begun to produce criminal opportunities of a variety that the brightest criminals of yore could not even begin to dream about

A cyber crime may be theft of information services, communications in furtherance of criminal conspiracies, telecommunication piracy, electronic money laundering, electronic vandalism and terrorism, sales and investment fraud, illegal interception of telecommunication, and electronic funds transfer fraud. The precedent for theft of information services was set by the 'phone phreakers ‘more than three decades ago for what has become a major criminal industry. In this method of crime, the perpetrators gain access of the PHX hoard of an organization, and make their own calls or sell call time to third parties.

The advent of information technology has enhanced the activities of criminal organizations. In a manner similar to legitimate organizations that use the information networks for record keeping and communication there is evidence of information systems being used in drug trafficking. Gambling, money laundering and weapons trade just to name a few. Another method of crime is related to telecommunications piracy. The fact that digital technology permits perfect reproduction and easy dissemination of print, graphics, sound, and multimedia combinations, has produced the temptation to reproduce copyrighted material either for personal use or for sale at a lower price.

A crime with major implications to common people is electronic money laundering. Electronic funds transfers have assisted in concealing and moving the proceeds of crime. Since emerging technologies male it easier to hide the origin and destination of funds transfer, money laundering has come to the living room. Another method of perpetration of the crime is through electronic vandalism and terrorism. All societies in which computers play a major role in everyday life are vulnerable to attack from people motivated by either curiosity or vindictiveness. These people can not only cause inconvenience but also have the potential to inflict massive harm.

Another variety of cyber crime relates to sales and investment fraud. As electronic commerce or e-commerce becomes more and more popular, the application of digital technology to fraudulent crime also increases. The use of telephones for fraudulent sales pitches or bogus investment overtures is increasingly common. Cyberspace now abounds with a wide variety of investment opportunities, from traditional securities such as stocks and bonds to more exotic opportunities like coconut farming. This has led to a situation where fraudsters enjoy access to millions of people around the world, instantaneously and at minimal cost.

Illegal interception of information is another variety of fraud. Developments in telecommunications as well as data transfer over the net have resulted in greater speed and capacity but also greater vulnerability. It is now easier than ever before for unauthorized people to gain access to sensitive information to the extent that electromagnetic signals emitted by a computer themselves can now be intercepted and cables may act as broadcast antennas. Added to this is the absence of law to prevent the monitoring of remote signals from a computer. All this makes information more and more vulnerable to unauthorized users.

Cyber crime may be perpetrated through unauthorized access, e-mail bombing, data diddling, salami attack, internet time theft, logic bomb,  virus/worm attack, trojan attack, denial of service attack, distributed  denial of service attack, e-mail spoofing, intellectual property crime, or cyber stalking  unauthorized access, also known as cracking as opposed to hacking  means gaining access to a system without permission of the users or  without proper authority, generally done either by faking identity, or  by cracking access codes. E-mail bombs means sending a large number of mails to the victim resulting in the victims mail account (in case of    individual) or server (in case of corporations) crashing.

While data diddling is a kind of attack which involves altering the raw data before it is processed by a system and re-altering it after processing, Salami attack is generally used to commit financial crimes.  In salami attack the alteration so small that in a single case it would go unnoticed. For example, if a bank employee deducts live rupees from Go customer's account, while the individual customers are unlikely to notice this small change but the employee will make a significant   Earning.

Internet time theft connotes the usage by an unauthorized person of internet time paid for by someone else. Logic bomb is an event dependent program that is created to do something only when a certain event occurs (e.g. the Chernobyl virus). Virus/Worm attack is a program   the attaches itself to another file or a system and then circulates to other files and to other computers via a network. This attack usually affects computers by either altering or deleting data from it and differs from worms, which do not interfere with data; they simply multiply until they fill all available space on the computer.

While a Trojan is a program which causes some damage under the disguise of a useful program, denial of service attack involves flooding the computer resource with more requests than it can handle. This causes the resource to crash, thereby denying the authorized users the service.  In the distributed denial of service attack, the perpetrators are more than one in number and geographically displaced. Hence, it becomes very difficult to control such attacks.

In e-mail spoofing, an e-mail appears to originate from one source but actually originates from another. Intellectual property crime involves the unauthorized copying and distributing of copyrighted software.  Cyber stalking involves following a person on the Internet and causing harassment.

Cyber crime can be prevented to a certain extent by using firewalls, frequently changing passwords, sale surfing, frequent virus checks, and using e-mail filters. Firewalls are programs that protect a user from unauthorized access attacks while on a network. They provide access to only known users, or people who the user permits.

The advent of multi-user systems has made security dependent on passwords. It necessitates that passwords to sensitive data be kepi secure so, they not only need to be changed frequently, but they also have to be kept sufficiently complex. Moreover, safe surfing must be followed by all users on a network. This involves keeping ones e-mail address private, not chatting on open systems, which do not have adequate  protection methods, visiting secure sites, accepting data from only  known users, downloading carefully, and only from known sites.

A commonly employed method to prevent cyber attack is the frequent checking of one’s computer for viruses and worms. Also any external media such as floppy disks and CD ROMS should always be virus checked before running. For people using e-mails, they should employ e-mail filters, which monitor the inflow of mails to the inbox and delete automatically any suspicious or useless mails, thus, reducing the chances of being bombed or spoofed.

Due to the brisk pace at which the information highway is entering our comes, we are all at increasing risk of being affected by cyber crime. Since, everything about our lives is in some manner affected by computers, it is high time that we understand that cyber crime is not the problem of only those people who use computers, but it is everyone’s problem.