What is cybercrime and how to protect yourself from cybercrime - let's see safety tips

In this article, we are going to brief you about some cyber precautions including cybercrime or cyber threats. 

What is Cybercrime?

Cybercrime, or computer-tended crime, is a crime that involves a computer and a network. 

The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target. Cybercrime may threaten a person, company or a nation's security including financial health.

Cybercrime, also called computer crime, the use of a computer as an instrument to further illegal ends, such as committing fraud, trafficking in child pornography and intellectual property, stealing identities, or violating privacy.

Indian Cybercrime Portal (Third party image)

 Friends.. Do you know the most common types of Cybercrime?

• Phishing Attack. In a phishing attack, cyber-criminals use email or malicious websites to solicit personal information from an individual or company by posing as a trustworthy organization. or in other way to explain that Phishing Scam is a practice of a cyber-criminal or hacker attempting to obtain sensitive or personal information from a computer user. 
  
• Malware. ...
• Online Credential Breach (user names and passwords)
• Debit/Credit Card Fraud. ...
• Identity Theft Scam
  
• Online Harassment.
• Cyber-Stalking.
• Invasion of Privacy

Who was the first cyber criminal?

In year 1981, Ian Murphy, Cybercrime Conviction — Ian Murphy, also known as "Captain Zap", at one point of time was having high school students steal computer equipment for him. Ian Murphy, hacks into the AT&T network and changes the internal clock to charge off-hour rates at peak times. The first person convicted of a cyber-crime, and the inspiration for the movie “Sneakers,” he does 1,000 hours of community service and 2.5 years of probation.

Ian at the age of 16, in year 1999, he gained access to several computers by breaking the password of a server that belonged to NASA and stole the source code of the International Space Station among other sensitive information.

Ian's career as a master hacker was fabricated in 1986 after he and his unemployed wife decided to form some type of business.

He has a long history of computer and Internet frauds. One of his favourite games is to forge Email headers and to send out third-party threat letters. 

According to Govt. of India's National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal:

In general cybercrime may be defined as “Any unlawful act where computer or communication device or computer network is used to commit or facilitate the commission of crime”.

Below is a list for some of the Cybercrimes along with their indicative explanation. This is to facilitate better reporting of complaints.

• CHILD PORNOGRAPHY/ CHILD SEXUALLY ABUSIVE MATERIAL (CSAM) : Child sexually abusive material (CSAM) refers to material containing sexual image in any form, of a child who is abused or sexually exploited. Section 67 (B) of IT Act states that “it is punishable for publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form.

• CYBER BULLYING: A form of harassment or bullying inflicted through the use of electronic or communication devices such as computer, mobile phone, laptop, etc.

• CYBER STALKING: Cyber stalking is the use of electronic communication by a person to follow a person, or attempts to contact a person to foster personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest by such person; or monitors the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication commits the offense of stalking.

• CYBER GROOMING: Cyber Grooming is when a person builds an online relationship with a young person and tricks or pressures him/ her into doing sexual act.

• ONLINE JOB FRAUD: Online Job Fraud is an attempt to defraud people who are in need of employment by giving them a false hope/ promise of better employment with higher wages.

• ONLINE SEXTORTION: Online Sextortion occurs when someone threatens to distribute private and sensitive material using an electronic medium if he/ she doesn’t provide images of a sexual nature, sexual favours, or money.

• VISHING: Vishing is an attempt where fraudsters try to seek personal information like Customer ID, Net Banking password, ATM PIN, OTP, Card expiry date, CVV etc. through a phone call.

• SEXTING: Sexting is an act of sending sexually explicit digital images, videos, text messages, or emails, usually by cell phone.

• SMSHING: Smishing is a type of fraud that uses mobile phone text messages to lure victims into calling back on a fraudulent phone number, visiting fraudulent websites or downloading malicious content via phone or web.

• SIM SWAP SCAM: SIM Swap Scam occurs when fraudsters manage to get a new SIM card issued against a registered mobile number fraudulently through the mobile service provider. With the help of this new SIM card, they get One Time Password (OTP) and alerts, required for making financial transactions through victim's bank account. Getting a new SIM card against a registered mobile number fraudulently is known as SIM Swap.

• DEBIT/CREDIT CARD FRAUD: Credit card (or debit card) fraud involves an unauthorized use of another's credit or debit card information for the purpose of purchases or withdrawing funds from it.

• IMPERSONATION AND IDENTITY THEFT: Impersonation and identity theft is an act of fraudulently or dishonestly making use of the electronic signature, password or any other unique identification feature of any other person.

• PHISHING: Phishing is a type of fraud that involves stealing personal information such as Customer ID, IPIN, Credit/Debit Card number, Card expiry date, CVV number, etc. through emails that appear to be from a legitimate source.

• SPAMMING : Spamming occurs when someone receives an unsolicited commercial messages sent via email, SMS, MMS and any other similar electronic messaging media. They may try to persuade recepient to buy a product or service, or visit a website where he can make purchases; or they may attempt to trick him/ her into divulging bank account or credit card details.

• RANSOMWARE: Ransomware is a type of computer malware that encrypts the files, storage media on communication devices like desktops, Laptops, Mobile phones etc., holding data/information as a hostage. The victim is asked to pay the demanded ransom to get his device decrypts.

• VIRUS, WORMS & TROJANS: Computer Virus is a program written to enter to your computer and damage/alter your files/data and replicate themselves. Worms are malicious programs that make copies of themselves again and again on the local drive, network shares, etc. A Trojan horse is not a virus. It is a destructive program that looks as a genuine application. Unlike viruses, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves but they can be just as destructive. Trojans open a backdoor entry to your computer which gives malicious users/programs access to your system, allowing confidential and personal information to be theft.
  

• DATA BREACH: A data breach is an incident in which information is accessed without authorization.

• DENIAL OF SERVICES /DISTRIBUTED DOS: Denial of Services (DoS) attack is an attack intended for denying access to computer resource without permission of the owner or any other person who is in-charge of a computer, computer system or computer network. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources.
  

• WEBSITE DEFACEMENT: Website Defacement is an attack intended to change visual appearance of a website and/ or make it dysfunctional. The attacker may post indecent, hostile and obscene images, messages, videos, etc.

• CYBER-SQUATTING: Cyber-Squatting is an act of registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with an intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else.

• PHARMING: Pharming is cyber-attack aiming to redirect a website's traffic to another, bogus website.

• CRYPTOJACKING: Cryptojacking is the unauthorized use of computing resources to mine cryptocurrencies.

• ONLINE DRUG TRAFFICKING: Online Drug Trafficking is a crime of selling, transporting, or illegally importing unlawful controlled substances, such as heroin, cocaine, marijuana, or other illegal drugs using electronic means.

• ESPIONAGE: Espionage is the act or practice of obtaining data and information without the permission and knowledge of the owner. 

Online Safety Tips

As you know most of people are indulged on social media  or Internet direct or indirect these days. Internet has become one of the integral part of our daily life. It has transformed the way we communicate, make friends, share updates, play games, and shop. They are impacting most aspects of our day-to-day life.

Cyberspace connects us virtually with crores of online users across the globe. With increasing use of cyberspace, cybercrimes especially against women and children such as cyber stalking, cyber bullying, cyber harassment, child pornography, rape content, etc. are also increasing rapidly. 

To stay safe in the online world, it is important to follow some cyber safe practices which may help in making our online experience and productive.

Cyber awareness and hygiene for parents

• Talk to your children about the potential online threats such as grooming, bullying, and stalking, keep track of their online activities. Set clear guidelines for internet and online games usage.

• Notice indicators of change in behaviour: If your child begins to spend more time online and starts being defensive or secretive about their online activities, it may be an indicator of cyber grooming. Talk to your child and engage him/ her in other activities.

• Protect your child from Cyber Grooming: Grooming is a practice where someone builds an emotional bond with a child through social media or chat window with an objective of gaining their trust for sexual exploitation.

• Children may remove privacy settings on social media to make more friends. Parents should discuss responsible use of social media. Also, they should educate and help them in selecting strong privacy settings.

• Never click suspicious links or attachments: Never click on links or files received in e-mail, text message or social media from unknown person. This may be an attempt to infect computer with a malware.

• Cover your webcams: A web camera (default in laptops) if hacked/compromised can be leveraged as a medium to observe/watch and record day to day activities. It is a recommended to cover webcam when not in use.

• Install anti-virus software’s with parental control functionality or parental control software’s on the devices used by children and review there privacy settings of social media sites used by them.

• Keep software updated: Keep your software and Operating system up-to-date. Hackers target software vulnerabilities to access private information and putting you at risk, so make sure to update all your software with the latest security patches. Never install software, games, music and apps from trusted sources.

• Set Secure browser settings: Always choose updated version of the browser and install safe browsing tools for protection yourself from hackers and malware.

Cyber awareness and hygiene for teens and young adults

• Secure your online presence just like you secure yourself:If you have not selected the right settings on your social media accounts, then photos and videos posted can be viewed, downloaded and used by others without your knowledge.

• Select the right privacy settings and content sharing filters on social media so that you are sharing your information, photos and videos only with your trusted ones.

• Be selective about accepting friend request of strangers on social media

• Learn how to block someone who is making you uncomfortable

• Learn how to remove someone from your friends list

• Remember to logout from social media websites after use

• Must be secured your phone with password

• If you notice your fake account has been created, you can immediately inform social media service provider so that the account can be blocked

• Be mindful of your appearance on video chat & video calls

• Your video chats on social media sites can be recorded by the person on the other side

• There have been instances where video chats which were supposed to be private in nature have been recorded and shared on social media groups and websites

• Be careful while accepting chat requests from strangers

• Do not use Smartphone for taking sensitive personal photographs and videos

• Do not use Smartphone for taking sensitive personal photographs and videos. Most of the smartphones are connected to internet and cloud storage. If a picture or video has been clicked/ recorded by using smartphone connected with the cloud, it may get saved automatically into the cloud. Even if users delete their photos or videos from their phone, the same photo or video can be recovered from the cloud account or any other device/ PC connected to the cloud using same account.

• If someone has taken such photograph using Smartphone, then take it seriously and make sure to get it deleted from their smartphone, the cloud and any other device connected using the same account.

• Protect yourself from Cyber stalking:Cyber stalkers show advances on a person repeatedly despite clear indication of disinterest by such person. They use internet, email, social media or any other form of electronic communication for stalking

• Disable location services for social media sites, mobile devices etc.

• Refrain from sharing your personal information like Phone number, e-mail address, photographs with unknown persons

• Consult your relatives and friends, if you think you are a victim of Cyber stalking

• Beware of fake social media accounts- Not all the accounts are real and not all information provided on accounts are true

• Be cautious while accepting friend requests from strangers.

• Be cautious with sensitive Browsing

• One should browse shopping or banking websites or apps only on a device that belongs to him/ her or on a trusted network. Avoid using friend’s phone, public computer, cyber cafe or free Wi-Fi for sensitive browsing as data can be stolen or copied.

• The deleted data on your communication devices can be recovered

• Be careful while you give your mobile devices, PC’s for servicing/repairing/selling:Personal commuters and mobile devices consists private information’s which needs to be erased before sending it for repairing, servicing or selling.

• Protect your communication devices:Prevent others from accessing your devices by providing password, PIN, Pattern or biometric information. Always install applications to your mobile phones, computers, etc. from a trusted source only e.g. Play store, App store or from official company websites

• Report if you find content related to of Child Pornography (CP)/Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit material

• Any content related to of Child Pornography (CP)/ Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit material such as Rape/ Gang Rape (CP/RGR) content should be report to the concerned social media website

• If anybody of your acquaintance shares Child Pornography (CP)/ Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit material with you, it is your duty as a responsible citizen to inform the concerned person that publication, collection and distribution of Child Pornography (CP)/ Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit material is illegal and he should refrain from doing such activities.

You can also report it on National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in)
 

Cyber awareness and hygiene for organizations

• How to deal with Child Pornography (CP)/ Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit material in workplace?

• All organisations should have clear and strong HR policies on how to deal with content on Child Pornography (CP)/ Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit material

• Organisations should have clear rules for use of electronic devices provided by the organisation

• If any employee is found possessing obscene or indecent content, proper investigation and action should be taken against them

• The organisation should report any incidence of sharing and storage of obscene content within the organisation to the police. The copy of the content should be saved as an evidence with restricted access

• All other copies of the material must be removed from time to time.
  

They can also report through National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal

Publication, Collection and Distribution of Child Pornography (CP)/Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) or sexually explicit material is illegal

Under Section 67 and 67A of Information Technology Act, 2000 makes publication and distribution of any material containing sexually explicit act or conduct in electronic form a punishable offence

Section 67B of IT Act, criminalizes browsing, downloading, creation, publication and distribution of child pornography

Indian Govt. Helpline Number - 155260 (09:00 AM To 06:00 PM)

For more visit the official website www.cybercrime.gov.in

 

  Source:  National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (India) & Wikipedia

 

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Be Safe, Browse Internet Safe!

 See also 

• Important Terminology of Computer Science 
• Govt. schemes for common people get extra security benefit on your savings account 
• Govt. health insurance schemes  in India
  
• Most useful website list for job seekers 
  

 

Thanks a lot for reading!
Neel Kamal