Cyber Crime is known to be any kind of crime activity, which occurs upon Internet. It can be effective for any digital device including notebooks, tablets, PCs, home electronic system, and smart phones. Thus, it is any activity, which indulges computer system, in the commitment of crime.
Before the year 2020, people weren’t aware of Cyber Crime, but in 2020, there were 4.5 million cybercrimes recorded to be happening around the world. Thus, 2020 led many to become aware of the cybercrimes.
In this blog, there will be a discussion upon the term cybercrime, along with its risk and the ways through which people may prevent from cybercrime.
Defining Cyber Crime
Let’s begin by defining cybercrime. The term “cybercrime” is used to describe criminal activity carried out through the use of a computer or other internet-connected electronic device. Cybercrime can be carried out by individuals or small groups of persons with limited technological skills, as well as highly organized worldwide criminal organizations with relatively capable developers and specialists.
Many of the most common cybercrimes are perpetrated by criminals or hackers looking to make money. Cybercrime is committed by both individuals and organizations alike. Computers and networks can also be used illegally by hackers for the transmission of viruses and other malicious code.
There are a wide variety of profit-motivated criminal behaviors that cybercriminals participate in, including stealing and selling identities, obtaining access to financial accounts, and fraudulently using credit cards for funds. Examples of Cybercrime include;
- Hacking into the user account
- Hacking into a governmental website
- Stealing the information of credit card
- Phishing campaigns
- Child Pornography
- Illegal Gambling
Categorization of Cyber Crime
Cybercrime is classified into three categories:
- Individual (harming or unlawful activities for individuals like pornography, stalking someone online, and trafficking humans.
- Property (extracting personal monetary information from credit card or bank account)
- Government (extracting databases of government and hacking into the governmental websites)
Types of Cyber Crime
There are different types of CyberCrime, explained below;
Botnets
It’s a term that refers to a big number of controlled computers (bots) that are linked together via the Internet (Internet). In addition to distributing malware, these botnets are used to execute steal data, transmit spam, DDoS attacks, and more.
Identity Theft
One of the worst things that may happen to a victim of cybercrime is identity fraud, which goes by the same name. Someone taking your identity allows cybercriminals to access personal information such as your social security number and other identifiers to commit fraud or steal property or misuse goods or services on your behalf.
Cyberstalking
Cyberstalking is a form of cyberbullying in which a person uses computers connected to the Internet to harass or threaten others. Cyberstalking usually involves the use of anonymous communication methods, such as email, social networking sites, and other types of instant messaging software, in order to conceal the cyberstalker’s real name.
Flood Attacks
DoS and DDoS attacks are both types of flood attacks. Most of the time, botnets are responsible for launching these attacks, which are designed to overwhelm servers and prevent legitimate users from accessing your domains or IP addresses.
Phishing attack
A sort of social engineering, phishing assaults are intended to deceive individuals into handing over their passwords and other sensitive data. In most phishing efforts, spam emails are sent with links to maliciously hacked websites that appear to be legitimate ones. (such as financial institutions, banks, online wallets, etc). Once you check in to these bogus websites, the attackers’ remote database has your login information. Afterwards, they may be able to access your bank account, credit card, or email account.
Potentially Unwanted Program
PUPs, or “potentially undesirable programs,” relate to software that you didn’t ask for but was installed nevertheless. If you’ve agreed to download other software, you’re more likely to find this type of program packed with it. Cracked or pirated software is usually at fault for this type of attack. Adware, spyware, dialers, and other malware are common instances of this kind of cybercrime.
Illegal content
All content prohibited by international law can be found on the Internet, and this covers virtually everything. Child and animal pornography, online prostitute services and the sale of illegal narcotics are only some examples of illegal content (such as videos, music, books, software, etc).
Exploit kits
Exploit kits target remote software vulnerabilities with a pre-built toolkit. Hackers commonly use Flash or Java vulnerabilities to surreptitiously infiltrate a website and then redirect visitors to malicious URLs.
Online Scams
Cyber scams, or internet scams, are frauds perpetrated by scammers that target unsuspecting victims with bogus services, commodities, or prizes. On-line scams include everything from charity fraud to ponzi schemes to e-ticket scams to gift card hoaxes to vehicle fraud and other such schemes.
How These Crimes are executed
Malware
It is a wide term, encompassing many cyber attacks like viruses, worms and Trojans. It can be described as computer code designed to steal or damage data.
- Viruses attach themselves to clean files and spread to other clean files. Damage to the operating system’s essential operation and the deletion and corruption of files can be caused by viruses that spread uncontrollably. Viruses are typically distributed in the form of executable files that can be downloaded from a website.
- Trojan is a malware that may hack malicious program disguised as genuine software. There are security backdoors that allow other viruses to infiltrate the system.
- Worms can infect a network of devices, either locally or over the internet, by exploiting the network’s interface. Each infected machine serves as a vector for further worm infection.
Phishing
An email from a trusted third party is a common kind of phishing. Spam emails that pose as legitimate ones ask for personal information from recipients who click on a link in the email.
Phishing emails have become increasingly sophisticated in recent years, making it difficult for some users to tell the difference between a legitimate request for information and a hoax. Although spam is sometimes referred to as spam, phishing emails are significantly more harmful than a simple ad. There are five steps of Phishing:
- Preparation
- Setup
- Carry out the attack
- Recording data
- Identity theft and fraud
DDos Attack
A denial-of-service (DoS) attack aims to prevent a network from functioning normally. Attackers flood the network with data, causing it to become unresponsive as a result of being overloaded. A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assault is the most popular method of launching a DoS attack. To carry out this assault, the attacker must use a swarm of computers to flood the system with traffic or data.
Man in the middle attack
Using a man-in-the-middle attack, a hacker can gain access to information from both the user and the company they’re talking with.
Prevention from Cybercrimes
There are certain ways to get prevented from Cybercrimes
- By keeping the software updated to have the latest bugs and vulnerabilities patched to the computers.
- By enabling the firewall of system to protect it from malwares.
- Using strong and unique passwords on the personal and website accounts.
- Using Anti-malware and antivirus Softwares like Windows Malware, Removal Tool, LmD, ClamAV and Rootkit Hunter, Mcafee, Norton, Kaspersky, Bitdefender, Avast antivirus, AVG Technologies.
- Activating the anti-spam blocking feature of the emails.
- Using 2FA for the online services
- Encrypting the local hard disk
- Shopping only through the well known and secure websites
- Using a WHOIS private service
- By using a private secured DNS server
- By using a VPN (Virtual Private Network).
