Chapter 8: Introduction to
Cyber-Crimes
Cyber-crime is a type of crime involving the
usage of digital technologies in the commission of a felony,
directed at communication and computing technology. The
contemporary techniques are thriving with the use of internet
activities, which has resulted in generating massive evolving
exploitations and has significantly increased vulnerability
globally, mostly of which is the transferring of private data to
commit a felony through illegitimate cyber activity.
Illegal activities involve various offenses
such as online transaction theft or fraud, an attack on web
servers, data centers, point of sale fraud, child pornography,
image files with built-in maleware and also partaking in
positioning malicious internet activities like email scams,
viruses, third party abuse such as phishing and worm drops.
To defend networks sufficiently from
hackers, different security controls are employed which includes
virtual private networks (VPNs), firewalls, intrusion detection and
prevention systems and various encryption algorithms. Out of these
four, the virtual private network (VPNs) plays a significant part
in inhibiting hackers from gaining access to the networks or
reading data. These networks deliver such a method to end users so
that they may access information privately on their network through
a public network infrastructure like the internet using tunneling
technologies and Internet Protocol Security (IPsec).
The earliest cyber-crime which was recorded
took place in 1820, which is hardly surprising keeping in mind the
fact that the abacus, which is
considered to be the most primitive form of the computer, was
invented around 3500 B.C. in Japan, India, and China. However, the
epoch of the latest computers instigated with the advent of the
analytical engine of Charles Babbage.
A textile manufacturer, named, Joseph-Marie
Jacquard, produced the loom in France in the year 1820. This
particular device permitted the recurrence of a series of
procedural steps in the weaving of distinctive fabrics.
This led to generating a fear amid workers
of Jacquard that their conventional employment and income were
being threatened by this new technology. Consequently, his
employees’ started committing acts of sabotage to dispirit Jacquard
from further using the latest technology. This was the first-ever
filed “cyber-crime”.
Computers of today’s age have come a long
way, with the advent of neural networks and nano-computing devices
capable of turning every atom in a glass of water into a computer
having the ability to perform millions of operations every
second.
One reason for the rise in cyber-crimes today is the
increasing dependence of humans on computers in this modern era. In
a time when everything from cooking stoves and fridges to huge
nuclear power plants is being controlled through computers,
cyber-crimes have assumed somewhat threatening implications. In the
past years, some of the significant cyber-crimes which took place
include the Citibank rip off during which 10 million US $ were
deceitfully transferred from a bank into another bank account in
Switzerland. This attack was executed by a Russian hacker group
headed by Vladimir Kevin, who was a renowned hacker of his time.
The group of hackers compromised the security systems of the bank.
Apparently, Vladimir Kevin was making use of his office computer at
AO Saturn, a computer firm situated in
St. Petersburg, Russia, to get into the computers of Citibank. He
was eventually arrested from Heathrow airport while traveling to
Switzerland.
Defining Cyber-Crime
Let us first define "cyber-crime" and
understand how it is different from a "conventional Crime."
Computer crimes can include conventional criminal offenses, like
forgery, theft, scam, defamation, and malice. All of these crimes
are subject to the Penal Codes. Such type of computer abuses have
also given rise to several modern crimes which are addressed by the
Information Technology Act, 2000.
It is not appropriate to define
cyber-crimes, as "actions which carry a punishment by the
Information Technology Act" since the Indian Penal Code also covers
several cyber-crimes, for example, cyber defamation, email
spoofing, and sending intimidating emails, etc. We can simply
define cyber-crime as unlawful actions in which the computer is
either a target or a tool or else both".
Let’s have a look at the acts where the
computer is used as a tool for an illegal action. This type of
activity generally consists of a variation of a traditional crime
by using computers. Few examples are given in the following
text:
Email Spoofing
An email is known as spoofed email is it
seems to originate from one trusted source where in reality, it has
been sent from another source. For example, the email address of
Sunita is sunita@indianlaws.org. Her enemy, Raveena, spoofs her
e-mail ID and sends offensive texts to
all her connections. As the e-mails seem to have come from Sunita,
her friends might take offense, and her friendships could be ruined
for life.
One implication of email spoofing can be loss of money. In one
case, an American youngster made billions of dollars by
disseminating incorrect information about a few particular
companies whose shares he had short traded. He spread this
incorrect information by sending spoofed emails, allegedly from
news agencies such as Reuters to investors and share brokers who
were told that the companies were performing poorly. The share
values did not go back to their initial levels even after the truth
came out hence causing loss of millions of dollars to the thousands
of investors.
Forgery
Fake currency notes, revenue stamps, and postage, mark sheets,
etc. can be forged with the help of sophisticated computers,
scanners, and printers scanners (Snail 2009). One even finds
vendors lobbying the sale of forged certificates and even mark
sheets outside numerous colleges in Asia. Such mark sheets or
certificates are produced using computers, and high-quality
printers and scanners. As a matter of fact, this has grown into a
thriving business involving hundreds of Rupees being taken from the
student in exchange for these fake but authentic-looking degrees
and certificates.
Cyber Defamation
Cyber defamation takes place when defamation
occurs using the internet or computers. For example, somebody
broadcasts defamatory stuff about particular someone on a website
or else broadcasts e-mails comprising defamatory information to all
contacts of that person.
One recent example is when a
young girl, namely, Surekha (real names of people have not been
used), was about to be married to Suraj. The girl was really happy
because even though it was an arranged marriage, she had developed
liking for the boy. The boy seemed nice and open-minded. Later, one
day when Surekha met Suraj, he looked anxious and quite upset. He
did not appear to have any interest in talking to her. Upon asking,
he told her that his family members had been receiving e-mails
containing mean things about Surekha's character. A few emails
mentioned her past. He further informed her that his parents were
just very upset and were thinking of breaking off their engagement.
Luckily, Suraj succeeded in agreeing with his parents and the other
elders of his family to contact the police instead of believing in
those mails without verification.
In the course of investigation, it was
exposed that the person responsible for sending those e-mails was
none other than the stepfather of Surekha. Her stepfather had sent
those e-mails with the intention to break up the marriage. In the
case of Surekha’s marriage, he was to lose control of her property,
of which he was the legal custodian till her marriage.
One more popular case of cyber defamation took place in
America. All friends and family of a woman were harassed with
offensive e-mail messages which appeared to be received from her
email account. These offensive emails were damaging the repute of
the woman among her family and friends. That woman was a popular
activist against pornography. In actuality, a group of people who
did not agree with her point of view and were angry with her for
differing with them had decided to malign her repute by using such
sly techniques. Besides sending spoofed offensive e-mails, those
people also put up websites about her, which essentially defamed
her character.
Cyberstalking
In the Oxford dictionary, cyberstalking is defined as
"pursuing stealthily". Cyberstalking includes following the actions
of a person across the Internet through posting messages
(occasionally intimidating) on the notice boards visited by the
victim, continually bombarding the victim with emails and entering
into the chat-rooms which are frequently visited by the victim,
etc.