Cyber Crime & How to Protect Yourself From Them
Cyber Crime and How to
Protect Yourself from Them
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. However, before you can understand more about this system, let us
find out more about cyber crimes.
Types of Cyber Crimes
When any crime is committed over the Internet
it is referred to as a cyber crime. There are many types of cyber crimes and
the most common ones are explained below:
Hacking: This is a type of crime wherein a person’s computer is
broken into so that his 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.
Theft: 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.
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.
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.
Malicious Software: 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.
Child soliciting and Abuse: 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.
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.
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.
Categories of Cyber Crime
Cyber crimes are broadly categorized into
three categories, namely crime against
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.
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.
Redback Cyber Security Council offers a way to
keep all information confidential by using safe and secure domains that cannot
be tracked or accessed. This security solution can be used by commercial and
governmental organization to ensure an impenetrable network while still making
sure that users can get access to the required information easily.
10 Online Activities That can get you Arrested in some part of the world.
Any of these 10 online activities could land you in jail in some part of the world.Internet is the unrestricted realm for its users. It brings you latest information, allows you to share movies, images and music without any limits, allows you to communicate in a split second. It has many other advantages. But their are some disadvantages that come with it in some countries.
Particularly if you dont follow certain rules and regulations laid down by these countries while using the Internet. Cyber crimes also increased, if anyone is seen violating rules of Internet, he/she may be put behind the bars. So, see the below activities that can get you arrested.
#1 Have an Open Wi-Fi
Keeping your WiFi Open and not keeping it password protected can sometimes land you in prison. Your open Wi-Fi connection can be used by criminals or terrorists without your knowledge and this can land you in trouble with the law in almost any country. This happened with a person name Barry Covert whose open WiFi was used by his neighbor to access child pornography websites. Though, police arrested his neighbour when they found nothing incriminating on Barry’s computer, he had to face the police for a month before the correct person was arrested. It is always better to password protect your Wi-Fi with WEP, WPA (WPA-Personal), and WPA2 (Wi-Fi Protected Access version 2).
#2 Deleting Your Search History
Sometimes erasing your search history can also land you behind the bars. This happened in United States, when a person namely David Kernell was arrested for deleting information on his computer. A University of Tennessee student, Kernell was being investigated by federal authorities for allegedly hacking Yahoo Account of the then vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.
India to had brought about laws making it mandatory for users to save their history for 3 months. But the same was scrapped after there was huge public outcry against it.
#3 Offensive Messages or Tweets
Making offensive posts or tweets can land you in trouble in any part of the world. Two persons from United States,Leigh Van Bryan aged 26 and Emily Bunting aged 24 tweeted about their journey “Free this week for a quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America”. Their passports were seized when they arrived in US. They were interrogated for about five hours on doubt of committing crimes. Bryan and Bunting tried to convince the police that “Destroying” was a British slang for “Partying.”
#4 Using VOIP services
This issue is country specific and only limited to Ethiopia. Using VOIP services like Skype is strictly prohibited in Ethiopia and can land you in prison. The country’s new telecommunications law strictly prohibits VOIP services, which consist of audio and video communication and transfer of information over VOIP clients. We advise you that if you are citizen or tourist of Ethiopia then don’t even dare to use Skype.
#5 Dancing in a Video
This is a serious offence in Iran. In fact, six persons were arrested for dancing to a video from Pharrell Williams song “Happy”. The Iranian judiciary found them guilty and they received 91 lashes as well as year’s prison sentence. Though later, the sentences were suspended and they got of after three months. In another case, three men and three women were seen dancing on the road and on rooftops in Tehran were also arrested.
A youth was jailed in Russia for 15 days and two women were jailed for 10 days after they were found to be allegedly dancing and making a video near a Second World War memorial.
#6 Leaving Internet Comments
Syria is now a battlefield between different warring factions for control of territory. Even then, commenting on the Internet is a crime in Syria. Human Rights Watch reported that in 2007, Syrian authorities arrested two person and they were shifted to unknown place, apparently for offering their comments about the censorship in Syria on a website.
#7 Translating Articles
Translating banned books can land you in jail in any country. Thailand authorities arrested an American citizen who translated an article on his blog. The article was termed as “offensive to the autocracy” by the Thai authorities who consider their King as a supreme being. Even posting on Facebook/tweeting against the King can land you in jail in the Lese Majeste laws.
In Indonesia, a person was put behind the bars for two years after he posted “God does not Exist” on “Facebook”.
#8 Gambling
Online gambling is banned in many countries across the globe. Similarly online gambling can land you behind the bars. This includes if you organize gambling or playing online games like Poker, Blackjack etc.
#9 File Sharing
#10 Posting Lyrics on Facebook
This may have happened only once. Unites States authorities arrested rapper and school student, Cameron D’Ambrosio was arrested for posting rap lyrics on Facebook. The police allege that D’Ambrosio made terrorist threats under the garb of rapping. Prosecutors sought to charge D’Ambrosio with threats to make a bomb or hijack a vehicle, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
There are many such laws which can put in a spot of bother while surfing online. Making racist comments or hurting religious sentiments is a strict taboo online like it is in the real world. If you know of any other such unknown laws exist in some country, kindly note them down in the comments section.
5 most dangerous computer viruses of all time
Computer viruses can be dreadful that might cause extensive damage to your innocent device. It can significantly disrupt your system’s performance and has the potential to wipe out everything on your hard disk.
So, what is a computer virus? A computer virus is a malware program that, when executed, replicates by inserting copies of itself (possibly modified) into other computer programs, data files, or the boot sector of the hard drive. When this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be “infected”, making your device helpless and sick.
Also, ever since people could write code there have been individuals known as hackers who have sought to make that code malicious in nature. While some pranksters created virus-like programs for large computer systems, it was really the introduction of the personal computer that brought computer viruses to the public’s attention.
Computer viruses have inundated the computer user for a long time now. Here are five most dangerous computer viruses of all time:
1. ILOVEYOU
This was perhaps the most dangerous computer virus ever created that in the form of a worm — it was a standalone program capable of replicating itself. Known as ILOVEYOU, this virus initially traveled the Internet by e-mail and managed to crash PCs all across the world. To make it even more alluring, the subject of the e-mail said that the message was a love letter from a secret admirer. An attachment in the e-mail was what caused all the trouble. The original worm had the file name of LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs. The moment someone opened the file, the virus emailed itself to the first 50 contacts available in the PC’s Windows address book. The virus caused a total damage of around $10 billion affecting almost 10% of the world’s PCs connected to the Internet.
2. Melissa
Melissa was the first mass-mailing macro virus for the new age of e-mailing which became the breaking news across the world on March 26, 1999. Based on a Microsoft Word macro and built by David L, Melissa was spread in the form of an email attachment by the name “list.doc.” When the attachment was clicked upon, the virus replicates itself and seeks for the Microsoft Outlook address book to e-mail itself to the first 50 names on the list with a message, “Here is that document you asked for…don’t show anyone else. ;-)” Later on, FBI arrested David L and slapped him with a fine of $5000 for unleashing the fastest virus of its time.
3. My Doom
My Doom explored its way to the malware world on 26th January 2004 and sent a shockwave around the world, as it scattered exponentially via e-mail through email with random addresses of senders and subject lines. My Doom destroyed the cyber world by activating a tremendous denial of service attack that infected close to about two million PCs. It transmitted itself in a particularly deceitful manner through e-mail as what receiver would first reckon to be a bounced error message as it reads “Mail Transaction Failed.” But, as soon as the message is clicked upon, the attachment is executed and the worm is transferred to email addresses found in the user’s address book. The damage caused by this fastest-spreading mass mailer worm was a whopping $38 billion.
4. Code Red
It debuted in late 2001 taking advantage of the Microsoft Internet Information Server’s flaw. The variations of the virus plagued the Internet for several months. The interesting thing about this deadly virus is, it did not require you to open an e-mail attachment or run a file; it just required an active Internet connection with which it ruined the Web page that you opened by displaying a text “Hacked by Chinese!” And in less than a week’s time, “Code Red” brought down more than 400,000 servers including the White House web server. This virus caused a total damage of approximately $2.6 billion dollars by hitting almost one million PCs.
5. Sasser
The 2004 worm virus affected Windows OS primarily, and was devastating to many critical infrastructures. It didn’t spread through e-mail unlike other viruses. Instead, once the virus infected a computer, it looked for other vulnerable systems. It contacted those systems and instructed them to download the virus. The virus would scan random IP addresses to find potential victims. The virus also altered the victim’s operating system in a way, making it even hard to reset without cutting the power. Sasser functioned by attacking the security controller Local Security Authority Subsystem Service, as it had a buffer overflow vulnerability. The worm affected hospitals, public transportation, airlines, news agencies and much more. After one million infections, there was an estimated 18 billion dollars in damage recorded.CYBER CRIMES AND THE LAW
In the era of cyber world as the usage of computers became more popular, there was expansion in the growth of technology as well, and the term ‘Cyber’ became more familiar to the people.
The evolution of Information Technology (IT) gave birth to the cyber space wherein internet provides equal opportunities to all the people to access any information, data storage, analyse etc. with the use of high technology.
Due to increase in the number of netizens(Citizens of the net), misuse of technology in the cyberspace was clutching up which gave birth to cyber crimes at the domestic and international level as well.
Though the word Crime carries its general meaning as “a legal wrong that can be followed by criminal proceedings which may result into punishment” whereas Cyber Crime may be “unlawful acts wherein the computer is either a tool or target or both”.
The world 1st computer specific law was enacted in the year 1970 by the German State of Hesse in the form of ‘Data Protection Act, 1970’ with the advancement of cyber technology. With the emergence of technology the misuse of technology has also expanded to its optimum level and then there arises a need of strict statutory laws to regulate the criminal activities in the cyber world and to protect technological advancement system.
It is under these circumstances Indian parliament passed its “INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACT, 2000” on 17th oct to have its exhaustive law to deal with the technology in the field of e-commerce, e-governance, e-banking as well as penalties and punishments in the field of cyber crimes.
Cyber Crimes Actually Means: It could be hackers vandalizing your site, viewing confidential information, stealing trade secrets or intellectual property with the use of internet. It can also include ‘denial of services’ and viruses attacks preventing regular traffic from reaching your site.
Cyber crimes are not limited to outsiders except in case of viruses and with respect to security related cyber crimes that usually done by the employees of particular company who can easily access the password and data storage of the company for their benefits. Cyber crimes also includes criminal activities done with the use of computers which further perpetuates crimes i.e. financial crimes, sale of illegal articles, pornography, online gambling, intellectual property crime, e-mail, spoofing, forgery, cyber defamation, cyber stalking, unauthorized access to Computer system, theft of information contained in the electronic form, e-mail bombing, physically damaging the computer system etc.
Classifications Of Cyber Crimes: Cyber Crimes which are growing day by day, it is very difficult to find out what is actually a cyber crime and what is the conventional crime so to come out of this confusion, cyber crimes can be classified under different categories which are as follows:
1. Cyber Crimes against Persons:
There are certain offences which affects the personality of individuals can be defined as:
- Harassment via E-Mails: It is very common type of harassment through sending letters, attachments of files & folders i.e. via e-mails. At present harassment is common as usage of social sites i.e. Facebook, Twitter etc. increasing day by day.
- Cyber-Stalking: It means expressed or implied a physical threat that creates fear through the use to computer technology such as internet, e-mail, phones, text messages, webcam, websites or videos.
- Dissemination of Obscene Material: It includes Indecent exposure/ Pornography (basically child pornography), hosting of web site containing these prohibited materials. These obscene matters may cause harm to the mind of the adolescent and tend to deprave or corrupt their mind.
- Defamation: It is an act of imputing any person with intent to lower down the dignity of the person by hacking his mail account and sending some mails with using vulgar language to unknown persons mail account.
- Hacking: It means unauthorized control/access over computer system and act of hacking completely destroys the whole data as well as computer programmes. Hackers usually hacks telecommunication and mobile network.
- Cracking: It is amongst the gravest cyber crimes known till date. It is a dreadful feeling to know that a stranger has broken into your computer systems without your knowledge and consent and has tampered with precious confidential data and information.
- E-Mail Spoofing: A spoofed e-mail may be said to be one, which misrepresents its origin. It shows it’s origin to be different from which actually it originates.
- SMS Spoofing: Spoofing is a blocking through spam which means the unwanted uninvited messages. Here a offender steals identity of another in the form of mobile phone number and sending SMS via internet and receiver gets the SMS from the mobile phone number of the victim. It is very serious cyber crime against any individual.
- Carding: It means false ATM cards i.e. Debit and Credit cards used by criminals for their monetary benefits through withdrawing money from the victim’s bank account mala-fidely. There is always unauthorized use of ATM cards in this type of cyber crimes.
- Cheating & Fraud: It means the person who is doing the act of cyber crime i.e. stealing password and data storage has done it with having guilty mind which leads to fraud and cheating.
- Child Pornography: It involves the use of computer networks to create, distribute, or access materials that sexually exploit underage children.
- Assault by Threat: refers to threatening a person with fear for their lives or lives of their families through the use of a computer network i.e. E-mail, videos or phones.
2. Crimes Against Persons Property:
As there is rapid growth in the international trade where businesses and consumers are increasingly using computers to create, transmit and to store information in the electronic form instead of traditional paper documents. There are certain offences which affects persons property which are as follows:
- Intellectual Property Crimes: Intellectual property consists of a bundle of rights. Any unlawful act by which the owner is deprived completely or partially of his rights is an offence. The common form of IPR violation may be said to be software piracy, infringement of copyright, trademark, patents, designs and service mark violation, theft of computer source code, etc.
- Cyber Squatting: It means where two persons claim for the same Domain Name either by claiming that they had registered the name first on by right of using it before the other or using something similar to that previously. For example two similar names i.e. www.yahoo.com and www.yaahoo.com.
- Cyber Vandalism: Vandalism means deliberately destroying or damaging property of another. Thus cyber vandalism means destroying or damaging the data when a network service is stopped or disrupted. It may include within its purview any kind of physical harm done to the computer of any person. These acts may take the form of the theft of a computer, some part of a computer or a peripheral attached to the computer.
- Hacking Computer System: Hacktivism attacks those included Famous Twitter, blogging platform by unauthorized access/control over the computer. Due to the hacking activity there will be loss of data as well as computer. Also research especially indicates that those attacks were not mainly intended for financial gain too and to diminish the reputation of particular person or company.
- Transmitting Virus: 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. Worm attacks plays major role in affecting the computerize system of the individuals.
- Cyber Trespass: It means to access someone’s computer without the right authorization of the owner and does not disturb, alter, misuse, or damage data or system by using wireless internet connection.
- Internet Time Thefts: Basically, Internet time theft comes under hacking. It is the use by an unauthorised person, of the Internet hours paid for by another person. The person who gets access to someone else’s ISP user ID and password, either by hacking or by gaining access to it by illegal means, uses it to access the Internet without the other person’s knowledge. You can identify time theft if your Internet time has to be recharged often, despite infrequent usage.
3. Cybercrimes Against Government:
There are certain offences done by group of persons intending to threaten the international governments by using internet facilities. It includes:
- Cyber Terrorism: Cyber terrorism is a major burning issue in the domestic as well as global concern. The common form of these terrorist attacks on the Internet is by distributed denial of service attacks, hate websites and hate e-mails, attacks on sensitive computer networks etc. Cyber terrorism activities endanger the sovereignty and integrity of the nation.
- Cyber Warfare: It refers to politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage. It is a form of information warfare sometimes seen as analogous to conventional warfare although this analogy is controversial for both its accuracy and its political motivation.
- Distribution of pirated software: It means distributing pirated software from one computer to another intending to destroy the data and official records of the government.
- Possession of Unauthorized Information: It is very easy to access any information by the terrorists with the aid of internet and to possess that information for political, religious, social, ideological objectives.
4. Cybercrimes Against Society at large:
An unlawful act done with the intention of causing harm to the cyberspace will affect large number of persons. These offences includes:
- Child Pornography: It involves the use of computer networks to create, distribute, or access materials that sexually exploit underage children. It also includes activities concerning indecent exposure and obscenity.
- Cyber Trafficking: It may be trafficking in drugs, human beings, arms weapons etc. which affects large number of persons. Trafficking in the cyberspace is also a gravest crime.
- Online Gambling: Online fraud and cheating is one of the most lucrative businesses that are growing today in the cyber space. There are many cases that have come to light are those pertaining to credit card crimes, contractual crimes, offering jobs, etc.
- Financial Crimes: This type of offence is common as there is rapid growth in the users of networking sites and phone networking where culprit will try to attack by sending bogus mails or messages through internet. Ex: Using credit cards by obtaining password illegally.
- Forgery: It means to deceive large number of persons by sending threatening mails as online business transactions are becoming the habitual need of today’s life style.
Affects To Whom: Cyber Crimes always affects the companies of any size because almost all the companies gain an online presence and take advantage of the rapid gains in the technology but greater attention to be given to its security risks. In the modern cyber world cyber crimes is the major issue which is affecting individual as well as society at large too.
Need of Cyber Law: information technology has spread throughout the world. The computer is used in each and every sector wherein cyberspace provides equal opportunities to all for economic growth and human development. As the user of cyberspace grows increasingly diverse and the range of online interaction expands, there is expansion in the cyber crimes i.e. breach of online contracts, perpetration of online torts and crimes etc.
Due to these consequences there was need to adopt a strict law by the cyber space authority to regulate criminal activities relating to cyber and to provide better administration of justice to the victim of cyber crime. In the modern cyber technology world it is very much necessary to regulate cyber crimes and most importantly cyber law should be made stricter in the case of cyber terrorism and hackers.
Penalty For Damage To Computer System: According to the Section: 43 of ‘Information Technology Act, 2000’ whoever does any act of destroys, deletes, alters and disrupts or causes disruption of any computer with the intention of damaging of the whole data of the computer system without the permission of the owner of the computer, shall be liable to pay fine upto 1crore to the person so affected by way of remedy.
According to the Section:43A which is inserted by ‘Information Technology(Amendment) Act, 2008’ where a body corporate is maintaining and protecting the data of the persons as provided by the central government, if there is any negligent act or failure in protecting the data/ information then a body corporate shall be liable to pay compensation to person so affected. And Section 66 deals with ‘hacking with computer system’ and provides for imprisonment up to 3 years or fine, which may extend up to 2 years or both.
Case Study-Attacks on Cyberspace:
Worm Attack: The Robert Tappan Morris well Known as First Hacker, Son of former National Security Agency Scientist Robert Morris, was the first person to be prosecuted under the ‘Computer and Fraud Act, 1986’. He has created worm while at Cornell as student claiming that he intended to use the worm to check how large the internet was that time. The worm was uncontrollable due to which around 6000 computer machines were destroyed and many computers were shut down until they had completely malfunctioned. He was ultimately sentenced to three years probation, 400 hours of community service and assessed a fine of $10500. So there must be strict laws to punish the criminals who are involved in cyber crime activities.
Hacker Attack: Fred Cohen, a Ph.D. student at the University of Southern California wrote a short program in the year 1983, as an experiment, that could “infect” computers, make copies of itself, and spread from one machine to another. It was beginning & it was hidden inside a larger, legitimate program, which was loaded into a computer on a floppy disk and many computers were sold which can be accommodate at present too. Other computer scientists had warned that computer viruses were possible, but Cohen’s was the first to be documented. A professor of his suggested the name “virus”. Cohen now runs a computer security firm.
Internet Hacker: Wang Qun, who was known by the nickname of “playgirl”, was arrested by chinese police in the Hubei province first ever arrest of an internet hacker in China. He was a 19 year old computing student, arrested in connection with the alleged posting of pornographic material on the homepages of several government-run web sites. Wang had openly boasted in internet chat rooms that he had also hacked over 30 other web sites too.
Preventive Measures For Cyber Crimes:
Prevention is always better than cure. A netizen should take certain precautions while operating the internet and should follow certain preventive measures for cyber crimes which can be defined as:
- Identification of exposures through education will assist responsible companies and firms to meet these challenges.
- One should avoid disclosing any personal information to strangers via e-mail or while chatting.
- One must avoid sending any photograph to strangers by online as misusing of photograph incidents increasing day by day.
- An update Anti-virus software to guard against virus attacks should be used by all the netizens and should also keep back up volumes so that one may not suffer data loss in case of virus contamination.
- A person should never send his credit card number to any site that is not secured, to guard against frauds.
- It is always the parents who have to keep a watch on the sites that your children are accessing, to prevent any kind of harassment or depravation in children.
- Web site owners should watch traffic and check any irregularity on the site. It is the responsibility of the web site owners to adopt some policy for preventing cyber crimes as number of internet users are growing day by day.
- Web servers running public sites must be physically separately protected from internal corporate network.
- It is better to use a security programmes by the body corporate to control information on sites.
- Strict statutory laws need to be passed by the Legislatures keeping in mind the interest of netizens.
- IT department should pass certain guidelines and notifications for the protection of computer system and should also bring out with some more strict laws to breakdown the criminal activities relating to cyberspace.
- As Cyber Crime is the major threat to all the countries worldwide, certain steps should be taken at the international level for preventing the cybercrime.
- A complete justice must be provided to the victims of cyber crimes by way of compensatory remedy and offenders to be punished with highest type of punishment so that it will anticipate the criminals of cyber crime.
Conclusion:
Since users of computer system and internet are increasing worldwide, where it is easy to access any information easily within a few seconds by using internet which is the medium for huge information and a large base of communications around the world. Certain precautionary measures should be taken by netizens while using the internet which will assist in challenging this major threat Cyber Crime.
6 Ways to Improve Your Organisation's Malware Defences
Malware is one of the most common types of security attack, so it's vital that your organisation takes steps to protect its sensitive data.
What is Malware?
Malware is malicious software that is unintentionally installed by a user and designed to attack your systems, devices or data. Once installed on one device, it can quickly spread through an organisation’s network, compromising value data in the process.
Thankfully, your organisation doesn't have to be powerless against the threat of malware.
1) Install Automated Anti-Malware Tools
Your organisation should start with the obvious (but very important) task of installing a comprehensive suite of automated anti-malware tools. This should include:
- Anti-virus
- Anti-spyware
- Personal firewalls
- WAFs (Web Application Firewalls) and WAMs (Web Anti Malware)
These anti-malware tools should be installed across all workstations, servers and mobile devices to protect the whole of your organisation’s network.
2) Choose Cloud-Based Software
Your anti-malware software is only as good as its ability to communicate with every machine on the system. When new malware signatures are identified, this new information needs to be sent to every machine on the network, quickly and efficiently.
The advantage of cloud-based software over locally-hosted software is that if one machine or server is compromised, it doesn’t impact upon your software’s ability to communicate with the rest of your system- allowing the new signature to be uploaded to the cloud, protecting the rest of your network from the threat.
3) Disable Auto-Run
Auto-run is malware’s enabler friend. Malware can enter through any number of points, like email attachments, web pages and removable media.
You should configure all of your organisation’s laptops, workstations and servers so that they don’t auto-run content from removable media like thumb drives, USB hard drives or CDs. This will close off one potential entry point.
Additionally, you should configure your systems so that they automatically perform an anti-malware scan of removable media when it’s inserted. This will protect against user actions, such as accidentally opening a compromised file.
4) Sandbox Email Attachments
Email sandboxing is a way of executing your email software and attachments in a contained environment, separate from your organisation’s IT infrastructure. This protects your organisation against malicious attachments and executables: the sandbox can be deleted, taking any malicious content with it
5) Develop an Incident Response Process
Your organisation needs to improve communication between your IT and security teams by developing and implementing a defined incident response process.
In the event of a security breach, IT need to supply your security team with examples of malware that has successfully bypassed their system, so that security can update and improve their anti-malware software.
6) Analyse the efficacy of Your Malware Defences
With new threats and vulnerabilities being identified all the time, it is important that your organisation is continually testing and evaluating its malware defences.
To analyse the efficacy of your malware defences, you need to measure the following:
- How long does it take the system to identify malicious software that is installed or executed on a computer system?
- How long does it take the system to send notifications to your security team that malicious code has been identified?
- Does the system have the ability to block installation, prevent execution, or quarantine malicious software?
- Does the system have the ability to identify where in the organisation the malicious software was identified?
- How long does it take the organisation to completely remove the malicious code after it has been identified?
When it comes to malware defences, you can’t just ‘set it and forget it’. New threats are being developed all the time, so you need to be continually improving your organisation’s security.
Best Hacking Tools For Windows PC – 2016 (Ethical)
Hacking Tools & software made hacking very easy as compare to old days. If you have a good set of hacking tools, it can save more energy and time. The main purpose to use hacking tools and software are for education and security awareness. Do not use hacking software against systems which do not have permission to attack or test. These tools are mainly made for pentester, researcher, security professionals for enlighten the security weaknesses. There are numerous Hacking Tools for PC/Windows available in the market. You see there are lots of paid, free and open source hacking software. It is difficult to pick up a right tool from the huge list. Here we have listed Top Best Hacking Software For Windows/PC. I recommend you first read documentation before proceeding to use these Hacking Tools and software.
Best Hacking Tools For Windows PC
Nmap- Network Mapper
Nmap- Network Mapper mostly works on all computer. It’s binary packages are available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It is a free and open source tool for security auditing and network security. It is very useful for monitoring host or service time, managing service upgrade schedules and network inventory. It works fine on both single hosts and large networks for scan. With the classic command-line Nmap executable it also includes advanced GUI and results viewer, redirection and debugging tool, a packet generation and response analysis tool.Metasploit
Metasploit is worlds most used penetration testing software. It helps to uncover weaknesses, improve security outcomes and focus on highest risks. It was free until it is acquired by Rapid7. It provides you advanced open source platform for testing, developing and using exploit codes. It helps you to find your weak points. So you can defence against the real world attacks. As a penetration tester you can find out different attacks which can be done on site. So before the attacker does, you can improve your security issues with metasploit.Cain And Abel
Cain & Abel is mainly designed to use for ethical purposes. It is a password recovery tool and helps to recover any password for Microsoft operating systems. You can easily recover various kind of passwords by cracking encrypted passwords using dictionary, sniffing the network, cryptanalysis attacks and brute-force. Recording VoIP conversations, revealing password boxes, recovering network keys and uncovering cached password are the other methods to recover passwords. Cain & Abel can simply recover credentials and passwords from various sources. Before using this software please first read license agreement carefully then proceed further.John The Ripper
John the Ripper is free and Open Source software. It is a fast password breacher software. It is currently available for Windows, DOS, Unix, BeOS and OpenVMS. The main purpose of this software is to detect weak Unix passwords. There are several crypt password hash types most commonly found on various Unix systems. It supports windows LM hashes and lots of other hashes and ciphers in the community-enhanced version.THC Hydra
THC hydra is often used when you need to breach remote authentication with brute force attack. It helps you to perform fast dictionary attacks against more than 50 protocols. such as ftp, http, smb, telnet, several databases and much more. It is fast classic password breaching tool and alos helps you to breach network logon passwords. For increasing functionality of this hacking tool you can add modules which is a great feature about Hydra.Burp Suite
Burp Suite is another best testing software. It provides you an integrated platform for performing security testing of web applications. It has various tools which works together and support entire testing process. These tools helps you to find and exploit security vulnerabilities through testing process. Burp suite is very easy to use and contains numerous powerful features to help experienced testers with their work.Nessus Remote Security Scanner
Nessus is a complete most popular vulnerability scanner developed by tenable network security. A limited free version is available for home network use. Otherwise it is a paid software. It was free and open source, but they removed free version in 2008 and close their source code. For easy cross linking between compliant security tools it uses common Vulnerabilities and Exposures architecture. It constantly updated, with more than 70,000 plugins. It provides you embedded scripting language so you can write your own plugins or understanding the existing ones.Owasp Zed
OWASP Zed is another penetration testing tool in our list of best hacking tools. It mainly used for finding vulnerabilities in web applications. It is easy to use and designed for functional testers, for developers and wide range of security experience who are new in penetration testing. It has numerous powerful tools and automated scanners which helps you to find security vulnerabilities manually.Aircrack-NG
Aircrack-ng is a best wifi hacking tool. It is a complete suite of tools to assess WiFi network security. It provide you various tools which helps you to breach WEP and WPA PSK security. It works fine on Linux, Windows, OS X, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris and eComStation 2. It has simple GUI which makes them to use easily. It includes many powerful tools including Monitoring, testing & Attacking: de-authentication, fake access points, replay attacks and others via packet injection.
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Hacking Tools