CYBER CRIME

INTRODUCTION       

Cybercrime is considered one the most dangerous threats for the development of any state; it has a serious impact on every aspect of the growth of a country. Government entities, non-profit organizations, private companies and citizens are all potential targets of the cyber-criminal syndicate.

The “cybercrime industry” operates exactly as legitimate businesses working on a global scale, with security researchers estimating the overall amount of losses to be quantified in the order of billions of dollars each year. In respect to other sectors, it has the capability to quickly react to new business opportunities, benefiting from the global crisis that – in many contexts – caused a significant reduction in spending on information security.

This work is aimed at acting as an eye opener to internet users through the definition, types, and recovery plans from computer crimes in order to enhance the continuity of a business. As Internet usage is growing daily the world is coming closer. The World Wide Web sounds like a vast phenomenon but surprisingly one of its qualities is bringing the world closer making it a smaller place to live in for its users. However, it has also managed to create another problem for people who spend long hours browsing the Cyber World – which is cyber-crimes. While law enforcement agencies are trying to tackle this problem, it is growing steadily and many people have become victims of hacking, theft, identity theft and malicious software. One of the best ways to avoid being a victim of cyber-crimes and protecting your sensitive information is by making use of impenetrable security that uses a unified system of software and hardware to authenticate any information that is sent or accessed over the Internet.

HISTORY OF CYBER CRIME

When computers and networks came into being in the 1990s, hacking was done basically to get more information about the systems. Hackers even competed against one another to win the tag of the best hacker. As a result, many networks were affected; right from the military to commercial organizations. Initially, these hacking attempts were brushed off as mere nuisance as they did not pose a long-term threat. However, with malicious software becoming ubiquitous during the same period, hacking started making networks and systems slow. As hackers became more skillful, they started using their knowledge and expertise to gain benefit by exploiting and victimizing others.

CYBER CRIME IN MODERN SOCIETY

Today, criminals that indulge in cyber-crimes are not driven by ego or expertise. Instead, they want to use their knowledge to gain benefits quickly. They are using their expertise to steal, deceive and exploit people as they find it easy to earn money without having to do an honest day’s work. Cyber-crimes have become a real threat today and are quite different from old-school crimes, such as robbing, mugging or stealing. Unlike these crimes, cyber-crimes can be committed single handedly and does not require the physical presence of the criminals. The crimes can be committed from a remote location and the criminals need not worry about the law enforcement agencies in the country where they are committing crimes. The same systems that have made it easier for people to conduct e-commerce and online transactions are now being exploited by cyber criminals.

DEFINITION

Computer crime is an act performed by a knowledgeable computer user, sometimes referred to as a hacker that illegally browses or steals a company’s or individual’s private information.  In some cases, this person or group or individuals may be malicious and destroy or otherwise corrupt the computer or data files.  Also, computer crime is any crime committed with the help of a computer. More specifically, it entails an ever growing series of categories detailing specific wrong doing facilitated by a computer. Computer crime is also known as cybercrime, e- crime, electronic crime or hi-tech crime.

CATEGORIES OF CYBER CRIME

Cyber-crimes are broadly categorized into three categories, namely

1. Individual                     

2. Property

3. Government

Each category can use a variety of methods and the methods used vary from one criminal to another.

Individual: This type of cyber-crime can be in the form of cyber stalking, distributing pornography, trafficking and “grooming”. Today, law enforcement agencies are taking this category of cyber-crime very seriously and are joining forces internationally to reach and arrest the perpetrators.

Property: Just like in the real world where a criminal can steal and rob, even in the cyber world criminals resort to stealing and robbing. In this case, they can steal a person’s bank details and siphon off money; misuse the credit card to make numerous purchases online; run a scam to get naïve people to part with their hard earned money; use malicious software to gain access to an organization’s website or disrupt the systems of the organization. The malicious software can also damage software and hardware, just like vandals damage property in the offline world.

Government: Although not as common as the other two categories, crimes against a government are referred to as cyber terrorism. If successful, this category can wreak havoc and cause panic amongst the civilian population. In this category, criminals hack government websites, military websites or circulate propaganda. The perpetrators can be terrorist outfits or unfriendly governments of other nations.

CAUSES OF CYBER CRIME

Wherever the rate of return on investment is high and the risk is low, you are bound to find people willing to take advantage of the situation. This is exactly what happens in cyber-crime. Accessing sensitive information and data and using it means a rich harvest of returns and catching such criminals is difficult. Hence, this has led to a rise in cyber-crime across the world.

TYPES OF COMPUTER CRIMES

Computer crimes are of various nature or types. We have the crimes that is committed against computer and crimes committed with computer. The crimes committed against computer deals with the various viruses or malicious computer software’s introduced into the computer which destroys or corrupt the existing or built-in software or data files.  On the other hand, crimes committed with computer are the various malicious works done with the help of a computer.

Crimes committed against computers are:

SPAMMING:

This means distributing unsolicited e-mail to dozens or hundreds of different address.

SPOOFING

This is the act of deceiving a system into thinking you are someone you really are not.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS

This is gaining access to system when you have no permission to access. This is a type of crime wherein a person’s computer is broken into so that this personal or sensitive information can be accessed. In the United States, hacking is classified as a felony and punishable as such. This is different from ethical hacking, which many organizations use to check their Internet security protection. In hacking, the criminal uses a variety of software to enter a person’s computer and the person may not be aware that his computer is being accessed from a remote location.

WIRE TAPPING

This is when an unauthorized person connects a device to a phone line to listen to another’s conversation.

CREATING MALWARE

A malware is a destructive virus that is introduced into computer system. It can be carried out through writing, creating, or disturbing malware. Example are viruses and spyware. These are Internet-based software or programs that are used to disrupt a network. The software is used to gain access to a system to steal sensitive information or data or causing damage to software present in the system.

DENIAL OF SERVICES ATTACK

This means over loading a system with many requests that it cannot serve as normal request.

Crimes committed with computer are:

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

This is the abuse of children by using them in the making or disturbing of child pornography. This is also a type of cyber-crime wherein criminals solicit minors via chat rooms for the purpose of child pornography. The FBI has been spending a lot of time monitoring chat rooms frequented by children with the hopes of reducing and preventing child abuse and soliciting.

CYBER TERRORISM

This includes hacking, threats, and blackmailing towards a business or person.

CYBER BULLY OR CYBER STALKING

This is a kind of online harassment wherein the victim is subjected to a barrage of online messages and emails. Typically, these stalkers know their victims and instead of resorting to offline stalking, they use the Internet to stalk. However, if they notice that cyber stalking is not having the desired effect, they begin offline stalking along with cyber stalking to make the victims’ lives more miserable.

ESPIONAGE

This means spying on a person or business without their permission.

FRAUD

Manipulating data, e.g. changing banking records to transfer money to account.

HARVESTING

This is collecting account or other account related information on other people without their consent.

IDENTITY THEFT

This has become a major problem with people using the Internet for cash transactions and banking services. In this cyber-crime, a criminal accesses data about a person’s bank account, credit cards, Social Security, debit card and other sensitive information to siphon money or to buy things online in the victim’s name. It can result in major financial losses for the victim and even spoil the victim’s credit history.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT

This is the act of stealing another person or companies intellectual property. This crime occurs when a person violates copyrights and downloads music, movies, games and software. There are even peer sharing websites which encourage software piracy and many of these websites are now being targeted by the FBI. Today, the justice system is addressing this cyber-crime and there are laws that prevent people from illegal downloading.

PHISHING

This means deceiving individuals to gain private or personal information about that person.

SALAMI SLICING

It means stealing tinge amount of money from each transaction made on someone account.

RECOVERY PLAN AND ITS ROLES IN BUSINESS CONTINUITY

Business Continuity

A strong business continuity plan can help prevent or reduce the risk of a cyber-attack. Seventy-two percent of small and mid-sized business survey respondents said they expect to increase their investments in business continuity over the next 12 to 24 months to prevent cyber-attacks, according to an article on TalkingCloud.com. (The survey included 700 SMBs from around the world and focused on the current state of SMB business continuity and disaster recovery planning.) Small and Mid-sized Businesses are increasingly looking for simple, affordable and easy-to-deploy business continuity solutions that protect against cybercrime.

What is a Business Continuity Plan?

A business continuity plan is a defined process to ensure that your business operations continue when an adverse event occurs. This is NOT a disaster recovery plan, which is specific to ensuring the availability of your IT environment including the data. A business continuity plan is all-encompassing and must include a data backup and DR plan as a part of the overall strategy. The main goal of business continuity management is to keep the company running smoothly and limit the amount of downtime, and risk to the business.

Why You Need a Business Continuity Plan

Many Small and Mid-based Businesses think establishing a business continuity plan is too costly and not worth the investment. However, can an SMB actually afford not to have a Business Continuity plan? The survey referenced on TalkinCloud.com, found that the average estimated cost for an hour of downtime for an SMB ranges from $8,220 to $25,600, and an unplanned event typically lasts up to 24 hours. The biggest threat to critical business data is cybercrime, and a Business Continuity plan could help prevent an attack or drastically limit the downtime resulted from the breach. A study by The Ponemon Institute found that organizations that involved business continuity management in cyber security planning are 5 percent less likely to suffer a data breach; yet, 55 percent of companies do not involve Business Continuity Management in data breach planning. However, it seems SMBs are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of business continuity planning as the threat of cyber-attacks becomes more likely. Small and Mid-based Businesses should work hand-in-hand with their hosting provider, whether virtual or physical, to ensure that all of their critical data and applications are included in their business continuity plan.

HOW TO TACKLE CYBER CRIME     

It has been seen that most cyber criminals have a loose network wherein they collaborate and cooperate with one another. Unlike the real world, these criminals do not fight one another for supremacy or control. Instead they work together to improve their skills and even help out each other with new opportunities. Hence, the usual methods of fighting crime cannot be used against cyber criminals. While law enforcement agencies are trying to keep pace with cyber criminals, it is proving to be a Herculean task. This is primarily because the methods used by cyber criminals and technology keeps changing too quickly for law enforcement agencies to be effective. That is why commercial institutions and government organizations need to look at other methods of safeguarding themselves.

SUMMARY/CONCLUSION

The prevention of cyber-criminal activities is the most critical aspect in the fight against cybercrime. It’s mainly based on the concepts of awareness and information sharing. A proper security posture is the best defense against cybercrime. Every single user of technology must be aware of the risks of exposure to cyber threats, and should be educated about the best practices to adopt in order to reduce their “attack surface” and mitigate the risks.

Education and training are essential to create a culture of security that assumes a fundamental role in the workplace. Every member of an organization must be involved in the definition and deployment of a security policy and must be informed on the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) belonging to the cyber-criminal ecosystem.

Prevention means to secure every single resource involved in the business processes, including personnel and IT infrastructure. Every digital asset and network component must be examined through a continuous and an evolving assessment. Government entities and private companies must cooperate to identify the cyber threats and their actions—a challenging task that could be achieved through the information sharing between law enforcement, intelligence agencies and private industry. Fortunately, like any other phenomenon, criminal activities can be characterized by specific patterns following trends, more or less strictly. Based on this consideration, it is possible to adopt an efficient prevention strategy, implementing processes of threat intelligence analysis. Security must be addressed with a layered approach, ranging from the “security by design” in the design of any digital asset, to the use of a sophisticated predictive system for the elaboration of forecasts on criminal events.

Additionally, sharing threat information is another fundamental pillar for prevention, allowing organizations and private users to access data related to the cyber menaces and to the threat actors behind them. At the last INTERPOL-Europol conference in October, security experts and law enforcement officers highlighted the four fundamentals in combating cybercrime as:

1. Prevention

2. Information Exchange

3. Investigation

4. Capacity Building

Prevention activities must be integrated by an effective incident response activity and by a recovery strategy to mitigate the effects of cyber incidents. Once an event is occurring, it is crucial to restore the operation of the affected organization and IT systems. Recovery from cybercrime is composed of the overall activities associated with repairing and remediation of the impacted systems and processes. Typically, recovery includes the restoration of damaged/compromised data and any other IT assets.

According to the data proposed in the last report issued by the Ponemon Institute, “2014 Global Report on the Cost of Cyber Crime”, recovery is one of the most costly internal activities. On an annualized basis, detection and recovery costs combined account for 53 percent of the total internal activity cost.

An effective incident response procedure includes the following steps: Identification of the threat agent which hit the infrastructure, containment of the threat, preventing it from moving laterally within the targeted infrastructure, forensic investigation to identify the affected systems and the way the threat agent has penetrated the computer system.

Remediate/Recover by restoring IT infrastructure back online and in production once forensic investigation are complete. Report and share threat data to higher management and share the data on the incident through dedicated platforms that allow rapid sharing of threat data with law enforcement and other companies.

Unfortunately, the process described is rarely followed. Up until now, the containment and remediation process has been a primary manual human process that makes it non-responsive and inefficient.

We must be conscious that is quite impossible to recognize every cyber-criminal activity before it affects the targeted entities. For this reason, it is crucial to have a mature approach to cyber security that emphasizes the aspects of early detection and recovery.

An efficient incident response plan, for example, could improve the resilience of the system to the cyber-attacks and allow a quick recovery from an incident.

The processes described on both aspects of prevention and recovery has to be improved by any entity that uses a digital asset or a system exposed on the Internet. Security needs an improvement approach that will preserve every single ring of the security chain.

Never let your guard down, cybercrime never sleeps!