In today’s world cyber crime is a big issue. Many people don’t know what cybercrime is. In simple words cybercrime is an illegal activity a person does by using a computer.
– ORIGIN OF CYBERCRIME:
The first cybercrime took place in 1962 when ALLEN SCHERR did a cyber attack against the MIT computer networks. Stealing passwords from their database.
In 1971 the first computer virus was made for research purposes by BOB THOMAS at BBN technologies called a creeper virus. From then the ability of future viruses to cause damage to computer systems detects.
In 1981 IAN MURPHY committed a cybercrime after successfully hacking into AT&T’S internal systems.
In 1988 Cornell grad student ROBERT MORRIS’s “Morris worm” struck in the year before the world wide web debuted, and before that the internet was used for academic research. It affected the computer systems of Stanford, Princeton, NASA, john Hopkins, Lawrence Livermore labs, and UC Berkeley among other institutes. It was the first major cyber-attack on the internet.
Like this cybercrime increases day by day with new technology.
-CATEGORIES OF CYBERCRIME :
1. Botnets
2. DDOs attacks
3. Identity theft
4. Social engineering
5. PUPs
6. Phishing
7. Prohibited/illegal content
8. Online scams
9. Phone calls fraud etc.
So, let’s understand the meaning of categories of cybercrime one by one-
CYBERSTALKING :
It is an act of continuous unwanted contact with someone online. Online threats, harassment, stalking, and messages are done by someone. it is done generally too afraid people.
BOTNETS :
It is the network of several computers and bots which are used by cybercriminals to scam and cyberattack people. bots are connected to each other for the same task and are used by cybercriminals.
DDOs ATTACKS :
A distributed denial-of-service (DDO) attack is a malicious activity in which the hackers make a machine, network, website, or application unavailable to users by disrupting services connected to a network.
- How it works ?
When multiple systems are infected, hackers connect the system and order to attack. every system starts sending requests to the target server and creates the traffic. Thus, the server becomes overloaded and its speed decreases.
- Types of DDO attacks :
The general types of DDO attacks-
- Volumetric attacks
In this type of attack, hackers completely generate a massive volume of traffic on the targeted site and completely saturate the bandwidth. Thus, any users cannot get in or out of the site. Examples of volumetric attacks are SYN flood attacks and ICMP flood attacks.
2. Protocol attacks
Protocol attacks are attacks in which the protocols of the target are affected. It affects the processing capacity of servers, load balancers, and firewalls with malicious connection requests. Examples of protocol attacks are SYN flood attacks and border gateway protocol (BGP) hijacking.
3. Application attacks
These attacks are designed to attack the applications directly. Disrupting some issues or ability to deliver content, or to harm the owner of the site. it takes place on layer 7 of the site. Examples of application attacks are cache-busting attacks, HTTP floods, and WordPress XML-RPC Floods.
Cybercriminals use a mix of these types to do DDO attacks. so, users can suffer more.
Identity theft :
identity theft is a vast term. In identity theft, someone uses others’ personal information like their identifying name, number, or credit card number without their permission to perpetrate fraud, or other crimes or to make money out of an account by using their credit card. Examples of identity theft are stolen checks, ATM cards, fraudulent change of address, social security number misuse, driver’s license fraud, etc.
social engineering :
social engineering attacks are a type in which the attacker’s strategy is to trick the target influencing them to gain control of their computer system and access their personal information. Examples of social engineering are malware, baiting, tailgating, etc.
Potentially unwanted programs (PUPs):
a potentially unwanted program (PUP) is a program in which software is unwantedly installed in concurrence with a program that the user wants. PUPs affect computer performance negatively. PUPs are clumped with free software.
PUPs can browse or track web browsing activity and show more unwanted programs to users.
Types of PUPs-
- Adware
Adware is any software that shows advertisements on programs or software that the user uses. It is mostly ads, blinking pop-up windows or full-screen Autoplay advertisements, etc. that mislead the users.
- Browser hijackers
It is a malware program that does modifications in the web browser settings without users knowing and redirects them to websites they don’t want to visit. It is also called a browser redirect virus.
- spyware
spyware is when any software installs itself on your system and starts gathering your online activities without your knowledge or permission and sharing your personal information with a third party.
Phishing :
Phishing is a type in which a cybercriminal sends messages or texts which seem to be from a legitimate organization, company, or website. Phishing messages generally contain a link that takes a user to fake websites that look real. The user is then asked for their personal information such as credit card number, debit card number, etc. examples of phishing are phishing emails, spear phishing, fake websites, session hijacking, etc.
Prohibited/illegal content :
In this cybercrime criminal uploads or shares offensive content like sexual abuse material, child pornography, drug trafficking, and many more.
– Government plans on Cybercrime :
The government has launched the national cybercrime reporting portal www.cybercrime.gov.in to report cybercrimes.
Indian government’s cyber security department puts efforts to prevent cybercrimes and enhance the investigations, the central government issued the advisories and increased capacity building among law enforcement, judges, and prosecutors.
– What to do if you are the victim of cyber-crime in India?
Report on national cybercrime reporting portal.
cybercrime helpline number 1930
Conclusion :
cybercrime is a never-ending battle as new technologies come the new ways of cybercrime produce. Simply, cybercrime is an activity that uses a computer network to do fraud against people. There are more types of cyber crimes rather than what we discussed above. To control cybercrimes and don’t want to be a victim of cybercrime, we have to spread knowledge about it and aware people, also victims of cybercrime have to report it immediately to the national cybercrime reporting portal or call on 1930 number for cybersecurity.
