Cyber Crime and Technology
The technological revolution has provided new tools to
misappropriate funds, damage property and sell illicit
materials-the cyber crime, a new breed of offenses that
involves theft/destruction of information, resources or
funds utilizing computers, computer network, and the
internet.
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Cyber Crime
The vast network has now become a target for
illegal activities and enterprise—the actions
referred to as “cyber crime,” any criminal act that
involves communication, computers and internet
network.
Internet coupled with powerful computers provide
wide range of global services ranging from
entertainment and communication to research
and education. At the same time some cyber
crimes use modern technology to accumulate
goods and services.
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Cyber Crime
• Cyber Theft: range from illegal copying of copy
righted material to using technology to commit
traditional theft-based offenses such as larceny
and fraud.
• Cyber Vandalism: technological destruction—
malicious attack at disturbing, defacing and
destroying technology that they find offensive.
• Cyber terrorism: acts that are aimed at
undermining the social, economic and political
system of an enemy by destroying its electronic
infrastructure and disrupting its economy.
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Cyber Theft
Cyber Crime for Profit
COMPUTER FRAUD: It includes theft of information,
including software that is copied for profit.
SALAMI SLICE: fraud-the perpetrator carefully skins small
sums from the balance of the large number of accounts
in order to bypass internal controls and escape
detection.
SOFTWARE THEFT-it led to huge illegal market depriving
authors of very significant revenues.
MANIPULATION of accounts in banking system has a has
as long list as the criminal’s imagination.
ATMs are now attracting the attention of the cyber criminals
looking for easy profits.
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Cyber Theft
• DISTRIBUTION OF ILLEGAL SEXUAL
MATERIAL: It has revitalized the porn industry.
Internet is an ideal venue for selling and
distributing obscene material and computer is
the ideal device for storing and viewing it. In the
name of adult entertainment sometimes legal
borders are crossed by peddling access to child
pornography. Credit card verification service
acts as an electronic gateway to the pictures and
movies of minors engaged in sexually explicit
conduct. In the well known case of “Landslide”
Reedy, the owner of the company was
sentenced to life imprisonment but it has been
difficult to control internet pornography.
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Cyber Theft
DENIAL of SERVICE ATTACK. It is an attempt to
extort money from legitimate users of the
internet service by threatening to prevent the
users from having access to the service. This
done by flooding the site with millions of bogus
messages. Unless the site operator pays the
extortion, the attacker keeps up interference,
until the real consumer becomes frustrated and
abandon the site. This crime can even destroy
the businesses.
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Cyber Thefts
ILLEGAL COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT: Groups
of individuals working together illegally obtain
software, then “crack” or “rip” its copyright
protection, before posting it on the internet for
other members to use: this is called WAREZ.
Frequently the pirated copies reach the internet
days and weeks before the legitimate product is
commercially available. File Sharing is another
form of illegal infringement, it allows internet
users to download music and other material
without paying the artists and the companies
their rightful royalties. MEDIA PIRACY is the use
of recording equipment to make copies of fils
while in movie theaters.
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Cyber Theft
INTERNET SECURITIES FRAUD: It includes
market manipulation, when individual tries to
control the price of stock by interfering with the
natural forces of supply and demand-either by
“pump & dump” or “cyber smear”. In the first one
erroneous and deceptive information is posted
online to make unsuspecting investors to
become interested in stocks, and sell previously
purchased stock at inflated price. Cyber smear is
reverse of the pump and dump, when negative
information is spread online, driving down the
price and enabling the people buy at artificially
low price, before the company officers inflate the
price.
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Cyber Theft
IDENTITY THEFT: when a person uses internet to
steal someone’s identity to open a new credit
card account or conduct some other financial
transaction. PHISHING is when illegal access is
gained to victims personal information. Victim is
informed about the problems in his account and
suggested to fix it. Once all the personal
information, including social security number is
provided, they go ahead with (1) getting access
to bank account and credit card, and buy things
with those accounts. (2) open new account
without the victim’s knowledge (3) implant
viruses into their software that forwards their emails to other recipients.
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Cyber Theft
E-TAILING FRAUD: Illegally buying or selling
merchandise. E-tailing scams involve failure to
deliver promised purchase or services or
substituting the cheaper or used material for
higher quality purchases. They sometime involve
buyer fraud. It involves top of the line electronic
equipment over the internet, then purchasing
similar-looking cheaper quality. The cheaper
item is then returned to the E-Tailer after
switching the bar code and the boxes with the
more expensive unit. The buyer gets the refund
for the higher quality product.
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Cyber Theft
E-MAIL CHAIN LETTERS: Victims are sent official
looking e-mail letter requesting cooperation by
sending a report to five friends or relatives.
Those who respond are then asked to pay to
keep the chain going.
FIND OUT ANYTHING ON ANYONE: Offered to
buy a CD program that you can use to find out
personal information on someone. What are
always being sold are the public records, and
the seller someone who wants an access to the
credit account number.
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Cyber Vandalism
• Her the cyber criminals may not be motivated by
greed or profit but by the desire for revenge,
destruction and to achieve malicious intent. It
ranges from sending destructive viruses and
worms to terrorist attacks designed to destroy
important computer networks. They exhibit their
technical powers and superiority. Some wish to
highlight the vulnerability of computer security
systems, or just spy on other people’s financial
and private information.
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Cyber Vandalism
WORMS and VIRUSES: the virus destroys the existing
program. Virus spreads from one computer to another
when user sends out an infected file through e-mail, a
network or a disk.
Worms are similar to viruses but use computer network or
internet to self-replicate and “send themselves” to the
other users via e-mail without the aid of the operator.
The damage caused by the worms and viruses can be
considerable. The Melissa virus in 1999 disrupted e-mail
service around the globe when posted to an internet
news group, causing more than $80 million in damage.
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Cyber Vandalism
TROJAN HORSES: It contains illicit codes that can
damage the system. Hackers install it and claim that it is
an antivirus program, as it is opened the virus spreads in
the computer system. Trojan horse do not replicate
themselves as viruses but can be as destructive.
LOGIC BOMBS: it is secretly attached to a computer
system, monitors the network output, and waits for a
particular signal such as date to appear, also known as
“slag code”. It is a delayed action virus and can cause
problems ranging from displaying or printing a spurious
message to deleting or corrupting data. In 2005, a
company employee who had an administrative level
access to the company’s computer system, by putting a
malicious data caused more than $100, 000 in damage 14
to the company.
Cyber Vandalism
SPAM: an unsolicited advertisement or
promotional material, comes in the form of
unwanted e-mail message. For example they
may launch sexually explicit website and find its
way to minors, or offering something like free
software or electronic game. When the recipient
opens or downloads the attachment a virus may
be launched that can corrupt the victims
computer. Sending spam is a crime and even
lead to a prison sentence when it causes serious
harm to network. In 2005 Allen Eric received four
years prison term convicted of 79 counts of
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spam.
Cyber Vandalism
WEB DEFACEMENT: It occurs when a computer
hacker intrudes on another person’s website by
inserting or substituting codes that expose
website visitors to misleading or provocative
information. It can range from installing
humorous graffiti to sabotaging or corrupting the
site.
Almost all the defacement attacks are designed to
vandalize web pages rather than to bring profits
to the intruders. Sometimes they are just trying
to impress the hackers community with their
skills.
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Cyber Vandalism
CYBER STALKING: It refers to the use of internet,
e-mail or other electronic communication
devices to stalk another person. The stalkers
pursue minors through online chat rooms,
establish a relationship with the child, and later
make contact for the purpose of engaging in
criminal sexual activities. Others harass their
victims electronically, by sending repeated
threatening and harassing messages without
being physically present at a computer terminal.
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Cyber Vandalism
CYBER SPYING: It is manufacturing, sending, and
advertising a surreptitious inception device.
Through this the purchasers through website are
electronically redirected to the creator’s
computer. An electronic greeting card or e-mail
is sent to the victim. Once the e-mail is opened
the spy installs itself to the computer and
records all their activities including e-mails sent
& received, website visited and password
entered. It gives the purchaser ability to remotely
control the victim’s computer, including
accessing, changing and deleting files, and
turning on web-enabled cameras connected to
victim’s computers.
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Cyber Vandalism
CYBER ESPOINAGE: Intelligence agencies around the
world are now employing hackers to penetrate secure
computer network at sensitive military bases, defense
contractors and aerospace companies in order to steal
important data. Chinese have been able to penetrate
sensitive computers, enter hidden sections of the hard
drives, zip up files and transmit data to way stations in
South Korea, Hong Kong or Taiwan before sending it to
mainland China. The spy ring known as Titan Rain is the
biggest threat faced by computer network in U.S. Similar
attacks have been launched in Britain, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand.
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CYBER TERRORISM
Cyber Crime with Political Motives
To integrate terrorist goals with cyber capabilities is now
another challenge faced by the Justice System.
Cyber terrorism can be viewed as an effort by covert forces
to disrupt the intersection between the virtual electronic
reality of computers and the physical world.
It is a premeditated, politically motivated attack against
information, computer systems, computer programs and
data which results violence against non-combatant
targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.
By using the computer network tools critical national
infrastructure is shut down to intimidate government or
civilian population.
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Cyber terrorism
The infrastructure at the risk of attack would be:
Water Treatment Plants
Electric Plants and Dams
Oil refineries & Nuclear Power Plants. These
industries all provide vital services to the society
to allow people to go about their daily lives.
Hackers could make a dam overflow, cause
damage to refineries, or nuclear power plant by
shutting down safeguards in the system that
prevent catastrophic meltdown.
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Why Terrorism in Cyber Space?
• It is a handy battlefield, an attack can strike
directly at a target-the economy of the enemy.
• It can destroy or reduce economic growth,
creating an inflationary economy, in return
reducing the tax revenue.
• With staggered economy the social programs
can not be funded as more funds will be devoted
to military/security to keep the terrorists at bay.
• These outcomes weaken the terrorist target and
undermine its resolve to continue to resist.
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Why Cyber Space?
• It is more efficient and less dangerous than the
traditional form of terrorist activity.
• There is no loss of life and no need to infiltrate
enemy’s territory. Can commit crimes from any
place in the world, with minimal cost.
• Terrorist organizations do not lack for skilled
labor to mount cyber attacks. There are growing
number of highly educated experts available at
reasonable costs in developing countries in the
Mid East and former Soviet Union.
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Is Cyber Terrorism a Real Threat?
International studies point out that fear of cyber terrorism
may be exaggerated or misplaced for many reasons:
• Infrastructure is not easy to hack.
• Even if they enter a system, failure of such locations
would not cause a widespread damage.
• Power outage problems with water treatment plants are
not uncommon any where in the world, and never
resulted in mass panic. Despite being focus of attention,
the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda never used cyber
attacks to gain their goals. Terrorists inflict psychological
and physical damage, so they would not spend extra
time for cyber attack which would not cause death and
widespread destruction.
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