Saturday, March 21, 2009

Cyber Crime: The Deception

We, Our Media and everyone around us are extremely concerned of the Network frauds, which indeed are the biggest threat to Business bests, Security experts and Law enforcing agencies. This paper typically divides the topic to two main parts. First the fraud and its shapes, Second will cover the problem engineered techniques and its elimination practices.

Network Fraud and its Shapes

Network fraud costs businesses billions of dollars per year. It is an intentional distortion which may result in personal or community fiscal and non fiscal damages. Internet Frauds can be classified as Cyber crime. These frauds are usually categorized as white collar crimes; so far done by intelligent, qualified and knowledgeable personals - white collar criminals. Let's investigate some established styles of most complex crimes of today's age.

Hacking
The first, the best and the most attractive style of Network frauds is hacking. Hacking is a process of gaining illegal access or having illegal rights to interpolate the system or a network. Most hackers act without any nasty intention, but to seek their knowledge and skills; some also act for delight and personal satisfaction but other are really dangerous. They are capable to destroy files and change the appearance of corporate networks and web sites. I will figure out hacking into Accessing, Defacing, Hijacking, cracking, Phreaking, phracking, Bombing, and Denial of service issues.

The hacking of personal computer is actually quite easy especially those which are using Windows, the software named as – Backdoor - grant the criminal access to system running Windows. Isolation of corporate network is usually more complex; hence need high expertise to hack because of firewalls; but Thanks to the corporate termites – The Insiders - which usually disclose the corporate secrets.

Pirating
The computer industry especially software industry is prune back by people serving to replicate the usage of software's and music without taking any favors. They illegally dispense not only the software but their keys and cracks. These people are the part of surreptitious communities, black markets and antiestablishment of the virtual globe; one can find many on chats. Other then software industry; Music industry also suffered huge loses due to this act. Although the act is not favorable but nominal fees for the software are usually little high and day by day updates are even bitter to grasp by an ordinary person.

Phishing
Phishing is a planned act of distributing forged spam from reputable organizations like banks to deceive clients and to collect some highly sensitive information like Account IDs, Pin codes, Credit card details, Username and passwords. People involved in this horrible activity usually work with their fake websites and are well capable of doing DNS poisoning.

Pornography
one of the most awful wicked and unsubstantiated thing internetworking bestowing us is Pornography. It is one of the most exquisite outlined cyber crimes. Ferals from families and outside often stick themselves to peri kids and further on exploit them for their illicit causes. Many girls reported that they were exploited and sexually molested seeing images and videos by their family members and friends. They also said that they are able to visualize complete pictures of those stimulating acts; which always scare them and disturb their entire lives. Despite cyber crime agencies efforts; pornography is developing day by day due to the increasing use of P2P software.

Salami Slicing
It's a kind of illegal transfer of money. The actor usually uses proprietor's system to transfer minute amount of money to his/her account. Usually the transferred amount is so small that it is considered as negligible by legitimate organizations but by time this negligible amount becomes million of dollars.

Identity annoyance
People usually met with us in our daily life with multi-shaded faces. In past we make pen friends but now people love to have chat friends. We never know exactly to whom we are chatting; either the person is innocent or a criminal. Some sick people surfing the net are smart enough to steal one's identity by having some information and some wild guesses. It's a high possibility that one can find sensitive information like personal phone numbers and will be very troublesome if the carrier is a criminal.

Scams
Scams are classified as unwanted prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries, gambling, Weight loss, share promotions, online auction, self-employment and Nigerian fraud etc.

Virus
Virus is a piece of code that infects either the executable (exe) files or Object files (Com). It attaches itself to a program in a computer and then replicates itself in way that whenever a corrupted file execute; the virus execute. It can erase files or lock up a system.

Worm
This is similar to a virus but they are able to replicate themselves on PCs and networks without any human intervention. These usually consume valuable system resources by duplicating themselves while residing in active memory. They can slow down system performance and even halt them.

Trojan horse
These are the programs which appear to be some useful software but perform malicious activities. Trojans are able to compromise your system by creating backdoors and transferring information to the malicious abuser.

Problem Engineering Measures
It is little difficult to prove frauds; so be careful and vigilant while making any deal with any person or organization on internet. There are some security-measures must be accomplished by every person.

  1. Always have a record of all conversations.
  2. Always publicize your net friends to your beloved family.
  3. Don't forget you are talking to strangers even if you have huge chat relations.
  4. Don't give out personal details, photographs, mobile phone numbers or any other information to any stranger or chat friend.
  5. Never use webcams; you can be used without your consents for some ill matters.
  6. Be cautious to your net friends.
  7. Always control your emotions and never respond hastily.
  8. Never try to meet anyone privately; even try to deny public appearance too.
  9. Never chat privately to the unfamiliar person.
  10. Talk less and think more.
  11. Always sit behind moral, ethical, and virtual securities.

Bibliography

  • Cyber Crime: The Wild West, Online By Bernie Alexander
  • Crime and the Internet by David S Wall Hacker Culture by Douglas
  • Piracy in the Motion Picture Industry by Kerry Segrave
  • PORNOGRAPHY AND REGULATION by Shirley Walters, Senator for Tasmania Australian Parliament
  • A PLAN FOR SPAM by Jonathan Zdziarski
  • Know your Enemy Phishing: Behind the Scenes of Phishing Attacks by Honeynet Project & Research Alliance
  • Pornography: Towards a Non-sexist Policy by Diana Russell
  • Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography by Open University Press.
  • The effects of exposure to filmed sexual violence on attitudes toward rape. Journal of Interpersonal Violence by Weisz, M. G., & Earls
  • US Security and Exchange Commission: http://www.sec.gov
  • Internet Fraud: How to Avoid Internet Investment Scams: http://www.sec.gov

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