Cyber Crimes And Solutions

We are currently living in Cyber age, where Internet and computers have major impacts on our way of living, social life and the way we conduct businesses.
The usage of information technology has posed great security challenges and ethical questions in front of us. Just as every thing has positives and negatives, usage of information technology is beneficial as well as insecure.

With the growth of the internet, network security has become a major concern. Cyber crimes have emerged rapidly in the last few years and have major consequences. Cyber criminals are doing every thing from stealing money, hacking into others computer, stealing intellectual property, spreading viruses and worms to damage computers connected on the internet and committing frauds.
Stoppage of cyber crimes is a major concern today.
Cyber criminal make use of the vulnerabilities in computer soft wares and networks to their advantage.

Hacking:

Hacking or Cracking is a major cyber crime committed today. Hacker makes use of the weaknesses and loop holes in operating systems to destroy data and steal important information from victim’s computer. Cracking is normally done through the use of a backdoor program installed on your machine. A lot of crackers also try to gain access to resources through the use of password cracking softwares. Hackers can also monitor what u do on your computer and can also import files on your computer. A hacker could install several programs on to your system without your knowledge. Such programs could also be used to steal personal information such as passwords and credit card information. Important data of a company can also be hacked to get the secret information of the future plans of the company.

Cyber-Theft:

Cyber-Theft is the use of computers and communication systems to steal information in electronic format. Hackers crack into the systems of banks and transfer money into their own bank accounts. This is a major concern, as larger amounts of money can be stolen and illegally transferred.

Many newsletters on the internet provide the investors with free advice recommending stocks where they should invest. Sometimes these recommendations are totally bogus and cause loss to the investors. Credit card fraud is also very common.

Most of the companies and banks don’t reveal that they have been the victims of cyber -theft because of the fear of loosing customers and share holders. Cyber-theft is the most common and the most reported of all cyber-crimes. Cyber-theft is a popular cyber-crime because it can quickly bring experienced cyber-criminal large cash resulting from very little effort. Furthermore, there is little chance a professional cyber-criminal will be apprehended by law enforcement.

Viruses and worms:

Viruses and worms is a very major threat to normal users and companies. Viruses are computer programs that are designed to damage computers. It is named virus because it spreads from one computer to another like a biological virus. A virus must be attached to some other program or documents through which it enters the computer. A worm usually exploits loop holes in soft wares or the operating system. Trojan horse is dicey. It appears to do one thing but does something else. The system may accept it as one thing. Upon execution, it may release a virus, worm or logic bomb. A logic bomb is an attack triggered by an event, like computer clock reaching a certain date. Chernobyl and Melissa viruses are the recent examples.

Experts estimate that the Mydoom worm infected approximately a quarter-million computers in a single day in January 2004. Back in March 1999, the Melissa virus was so powerful that it forced Microsoft and a number of other very large companies to completely turn off their e-mail systems until the virus could be contained.

Solutions:

An important question arises that how can these crimes be prevented. A number of techniques and solutions have been presented but the problems still exists and are increasing day by day.

Antivirus And Anti spyware Software:

Аntivirus software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify, thwart and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software. Anti spy wares are used to restrict backdoor program, trojans and other spy wares to be installed on the computer.

Firewalls:

A firewall protects a computer network from unauthorized access. Network firewalls may be hardware devices, software programs, or a combination of the two. A network firewall typically guards an internal computer network against malicious access from outside the network.

Cryptography:

Cryptography is the science of encrypting and decrypting information. Encryption is like sending a postal mail to another party with a lock code on the envelope which is known only to the sender and the recipient. A number of cryptographic methods have been developed and some of them are still not cracked.

Cyber Ethics and Laws:

Cyber ethics and cyber laws are also being formulated to stop cyber crimes. It is a responsibility of every individual to follow cyber ethics and cyber laws so that the increasing cyber crimes shall reduce. Security softwares like anti viruses and anti spy wares should be installed on all computers, in order to remain secure from cyber crimes. Internet Service Providers should also provide high level of security at their servers in order to keep their clients secure from all types of viruses and mallicious programs.

Cyber Law and Slander Online Considered

We are starting to see more and more Internet Laws being added to the books in many different agencies in the United States. There are cyber laws at the FBI, FCC, SEC, FTC and many other places cropping up. What is unfortunate indeed is that most of these laws are made to protect US Citizens and yet only enforced onto US Citizens. We have Identity Theft Laws, Child Porn, SPAM, Phishing and Hacking Laws and yet in reality most of the criminals who specialize here are not US Citizens and do not live in the US.

Perhaps as the Internet Started those sorts of criminals were from here, but not anymore, as the United States has been cleaning up its act. Now these criminals come from other countries and the Internet knows no bounds. They hide in far away countries and host their websites in far away cities, half way around the world and they prey on the US Citizens. Our Cyber Laws cannot protect the American People in this case.

Then there are those harassing slander laws, which seem to be selectively enforced as well. Even the government itself slanders citizens on the Internet accusing them of things they did not do or purporting their side of the case in self-aggrandizement prior to any court of law. It appears that in the future all these issues must be addressed other wise any cyber laws, which are made are never going to stop the crime being committed. Consider all this in 2006.

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The Obstacles Facing Cyber Law Enforcement

The online community is cruel and ruthless leaving no margin of error for anyone. Once you make a bona fide mistake you get crucified immediately. It is because of this general attitude among many people in social communities, that people jump to unfair and unjustified conclusions. Most participants of these communities are used to this behaviour and are not bothered by it too much. Most of these unjustified remarks often cause embarrassment for the comment maker, which is well deserved, because you should take the consequences of your actions for speaking out loud without thinking. Where am I going with this? What does this have to do with fighting cyber crime?

Let me explain with an example: When a big company like Microsoft cause a security risk for users of Internet Explorer out of negligence, you can be sure that the press (including the online community) will throw some big stones at them. This response is justified because the safety of innocent users is put at risk because of the negligence of a respectful organisation. But when Microsoft makes a remark that is misunderstood by some people, without causing any security threats because of this ill formulated remark, why should they be crucified? Microsoft is run by people and people make mistakes. If the community wants to rant and rave about something, then find something that deserves some ranting and raving and stop wasting time on things that can be excused. The company has to waste valuable resources to put out the fires caused by this overreaction instead of using those resources to improve the security of their products. No, I am not a Microsoft prophet, I am simply using them as an example.

Investigating spam and determining the origin of a scam letter is not as simple as tracking an IP address. Most people think so, but that is because they never really tried to locate a spammer on their own after being spammed. It is very easy to forge an e-mail header and that makes it almost impossible to locate the real sender of the e-mail. Even if the header is not forged, you never know whether it is a case of identity theft. Computer criminals hack into e-mail accounts, they hijack web sites and use it to their advantage under the identity of an innocent victim. This enables them to operate undetectable by moving from one account to another. Jurisdictional constraints makes it is hard for federal organisations of one country to prosecute crimes committed in another crime, not even to speak of locating the criminal.

Abuse departments of hosting companies and service providers are so swamped with so many daily reports of spam and network abuse that it is impossible for them to respond to each and every spam report individually. It obviously creates the impression that they do not really take action against the guilty parties. Of course, some companies appear to have an abuse department, but it is only a front to make people believe that they take action against spammers. This discourages people from reporting cyber crime and it effectively allows cyber criminals to operate in the open without the risk of getting caught.

People take cyber crime lightly, cyber crime is being handled as crime committed in another dimension, a dimension not regulated by law. Cyber crime is just like any other crime committed in the normal world, the only difference comes in the methods of investigation. Cyber swindlers are real life criminals, they should never be underestimated. The fact that they operate behind a computer screen makes no difference. Law enforcement agencies do not really care about the person robbed from a couple of dollars, they only pursue the big fish. Unfortunately this is how most scammers operate. They steal a bit from one victim, they steal a bit from another victim, they steal a bit from hundreds of helpless victims and pocked thousands of dollars in the end. Law enforcement agencies will take this crime more serious if everyone starts to report it to their local police department. Sooner or later they will realise that something has to be done. Many police departments are also not equipped to handle digital evidence effectively and many police officers still do not have the skills to conduct proper cyber crime investigations.

Cyber crime is very volatile and cannot always be solved using conventional methods, so I appeal to the online community not to question the unconventional methods of cyber crime investigators. At least they are doing something about an epidemic that is ignored by many influential and powerful organisations.

About the Author
Coenraad is webmaster and founder of Cyber Top Cops, leaders in Internet security, prevention of online fraud and educating users against online scams and malicious software. You can report scams to them for investigation by using their Report Spam page.