17-06-2014, 03:53 PM
MAHARASHTRA STATE BOARD OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION
MAHARASHTRA STATE BOARD.docx (Size: 122.49 KB / Downloads: 22)
Abstract
“Cyber” refers to imaginary space, which is created when the electronic devices communicate like network of computers. Cyber crime refers to anything done in the cyber space with a criminal intent. These could be either the criminal activities in the conventional sense or could be activities, newly evolved with the growth of the new medium. Cyber crime include acts such as banking, uploading obscene content on the internet, sending obscene e-mail and hacking into a person’s e-banking account to withdraw money. Computer crime, or cyber crime, refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network. Where the computers played and instrumental part in the commission of a crime. Cyber crime has nowhere been defined in any statute/ Act passed or enacted by the Indian parliament. The concept of cyber crime is not radically different from the concept of conventional crime. Both include conduct a whether act or commission, which cause breach of rules of law and counterbalanced by the sanction of the state. Particularly those surrounding hacking, copyright infringement through warez, child pornography and child grooming.
INTRODUCTION
The term ‘cyber crime’ is a misnomer. This term has nowhere been defined in any statute /Act passed or enacted by the Indian Parliament. The concept of cyber crime is not radically different from the concept of conventional crime. Both include conduct whether act or omission, which cause breach of rules of law and counterbalanced by the sanction of the state.
Before evaluating the concept of cyber crime it is obvious that the concept of conventional crime be discussed and the points of similarity and deviance between both these forms may be discussed.
Conventional Crime
Crime is a social and economic phenomenon and is as old as the human society. Crime is a legal concept and has the sanction of the law. Crime or an offence is “a legal wrong that can be followed by criminal proceedings which may result into punishment.”The hallmark of criminality is that, it is breach of the criminal law. Per Lord Atkins “the criminal quality of an act cannot be discovered by reference to any standard but one: is the act prohibited with penal consequences”.
A crime may be said to be any conduct accompanied by act or omission prohibited by law and consequential breach of which is visited by penal consequences.
Unauthorized Access to computer systems or Networks / Hacking
This kind of offence is normally referred as hacking in the generic sense.
However the framers of the information technology act 2000, have no where used this term.
So to avoid any confusion, we would not interchangeably use the word hacking for ‘unauthorized access’ as the latter has wide connotation.
This includes information stored in computer hard disks, removable storage media etc. Theft may be either by appropriating the data physically or by tampering them through the virtual medium
Email Bombing
This kind of activity refers to sending large numbers of mail to the victim, which may be an individual or a company or even mail servers there by ultimately resulting into crashing
Mass mailing
Mass mailing consists of sending numerous duplicate mails to the same email address. These types of mail bombs are simple to design but their extreme simplicity means they can be easily detected by spam filters. Email-bombing using mass mailing is also commonly performed as a DDoS attack by employing the use of "zombie" bonnets; hierarchical networks of computers compromised by malware and under the attacker's control. Similar to their use in spamming, the attacker instructs the bonnet to send out millions or even billions of emails, but unlike normal bonnet spamming, the emails are all addressed to only one or a few addresses the attacker wishes to flood. This form of email bombing is similar in purpose to other DDoS flooding attacks. As the targets are frequently the dedicated hosts handling website and email accounts of a business, this type of attack can be just as devastating to both services of the host
List linking
List linking means signing a particular email address up to several email list subscriptions. The victim then has to unsubscribe from these unwanted services manually. In order to prevent this type of bombing, most email subscription services send a confirmation email to a person's inbox when that email is used to register for a subscription. This method of prevention is easily circumvented: if the perpetrator registers a new email account and sets it to automatically forward all mail to the victim, he or she can reply to the confirmation emails, and the list linking can proceed
Virus / Worm Attacks
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.
• A computer virus is a type of malware that, when executed, replicates by inserting copies of itself (possibly modified) into other files; when this replication succeeds, the affected files are then said to be "infected". Viruses often perform some type of harmful activity on infected hosts, such as stealing hard disk space or CPU time, accessing private information, corrupting data, displaying political or humorous messages on the user's screen, spamming their contacts, or logging their keystrokes. However, not all viruses carry a destructive payload or attempt to hide themselves -- the defining characteristic of viruses is that they are self-replicating computer programs which install themselves without the user's consent.
• Virus writers use social engineering and exploit detailed knowledge of security to gain access to their hosts' computing resources. The vast majority of viruses (over 99%) target systems running Microsoft Windows, employing a variety of mechanisms to infect new hosts, and often using complex anti-detection/stealth strategies to evade antivirus software. Motives for creating viruses can include seeking profit, desire to send a political message, personal amusement, to demonstrate that a vulnerability exists in software, for sabotage and denial of service, or simply because they wish to explore artificial life and evolutionary algorithms.
Logic Bombs
• These are event dependent programs. This implies that these programs are created to do something only when a certain event (known as a trigger event) occurs.
• E.g. even some viruses may be termed logic bombs because they lie dormant all through the year and become active only on a particular date (like the Chernobyl virus).
• A logic bomb is a piece of code intentionally inserted into a software system that will set off a malicious function when specified conditions are met. For example, a programmer may hide a piece of code that starts deleting files (such as a salary database trigger), should they ever be terminated from the company.
• Software that is inherently malicious, such as viruses and worms, often contain logic bombs that execute a certain payload at a pre-defined time or when some other condition is met. This technique can be used by a virus or worm to gain momentum and spread before being noticed. Some viruses attack their host systems on specific dates, such as Friday the 13th or April Fool's Day. Trojans that activate on certain dates are often called "time bombs".
Internet Time Thefts
Normally in these kinds of thefts, the Internet surfing hours of the victim are used up by another person. This is done by gaining access to the login ID and the password.
Example, A Person’s Internet hours were used up by an Unknown person in 1999. This was perhaps one of the first reported cases related to cyber crime in India. However this case made the police infamous as to their lack of understanding of the nature of cyber crime
Web Jacking
This term is derived from the term hi jacking.
In these kinds of offences the hacker gains access and control over the web site of another.
He may even mutilate or change the information on the site.
This may be done for fulfilling political objectives or for money.
E.g. recently the site of MIT (Ministry of Information Technology) was hacked by the Pakistani hackers and some obscene matter was placed therein. Further the site of Bombay crime branch was also web jacked.
Another case of web jacking is that of the ‘gold fish’ case. In this case the site was hacked and the information pertaining to gold fish was changed.
Further a ransom of US $ 1 million was demanded as ransom.
Conclusion
1) From this Presentation, We conclude that we get to Understand Concepts of Cybercrime