Cyber Crime

What is cyber crime?

Cyber crime refers to criminal activities that are carried out using computers or the internet. It encompasses a wide range of illegal activities, including hacking, identity theft, online scams, and cyberbullying. With the advancement of technology, cyber criminals have found new ways to exploit vulnerabilities and target individuals, businesses, and even governments. These criminals use various techniques and tools to gain unauthorized access to computer systems, steal sensitive information, and cause financial or reputational damage. The consequences of cyber crime can be devastating, affecting individuals' privacy, financial security, and emotional well-being. To combat cyber crime, it is vital for individuals and organizations to stay vigilant, adopt strong security measures, and educate themselves about potential threats.

In India, there are various categories or types of cybercrime that are prevalent in the country. These include but are not limited to hacking, identity theft, online fraud, phishing scams, cyberbullying, and online harassment.

1. Hacking refers to unauthorized access to computer systems or networks with the intention of stealing information or causing damage.

2. Identity theft involves stealing someone's personal information to commit fraud or other criminal activities.

3. Online fraud includes schemes such as advance fee fraud, lottery scams, or investment fraud, where individuals are tricked into providing money or sensitive information.

4. Phishing scams involve tricking individuals into revealing their personal or financial information through fraudulent emails or websites.

5. Cyberbullying and online harassment involve the use of technology to harass, intimidate, or humiliate others.

   These cybercrimes pose a significant threat to individuals and organizations, and it is crucial for law enforcement agencies and individuals to be aware of these types of crimes and take necessary measures to prevent them.

Various Definitions: (from https://cybercrime.gov.in)

1. 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.

2. Cyber Bullying

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

3. 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 offence of stalking.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. Sexting

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

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. Data Breach

A data breach is an incident in which information is accessed without authorization.

18. 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.

• A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. Pharming

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

22. Cryptojacking

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

23. 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.

24. Espionage

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

Source: https://cybercrime.gov.in/Webform/CrimeCatDes.aspx

The three major categories of cyber crime are:

        1. Crimes against persons

        2. Crimes against property

        3. Crimes against State / Government

1. Crimes against persons are:

• Cyber-Stalking:
  Use of electronics communication

  • to follow, or

  • attempt to contact a person to foster personal interaction repeatedly despite a clear indication of disinterest, or

  • to monitors the internet, email or any other form of electronic communication commits the offence of stalking.
    

• 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.
  

• Defamation:
  It is an act of imputing any person to lower down the dignity of the person by hacking his mail account and sending some mails with using vulgar language to unknown persons mail account.
  

• Hacking:
  It means unauthorized control/access over computer system and act of hacking completely destroys the whole data as well as computer programmers. Hackers usually hacks telecommunication and mobile network.
  

• Cracking:
  It is one of the serious cyber crimes known till date .Cracking means that a stranger has broken into your computer systems without your knowledge and consent and has tampered with precious confidential data and information.
  

• E-Mail Spoofing:
  A spoofed e-mail may be said to be one, which misrepresents its origin. It shows its origin to be different from which actually it originates.
  

• SMS Spoofing:
  Spoofing is a blocking through spam which means the unwanted uninvited messages. Wrongdoer steals mobile phone number of any person and sending SMS via internet and receiver gets the SMS from the mobile phone number of the victim. It is very serious cyber crime against any individual.
  

• Carding:
  It means false ATM cards i.e. Debit and Credit cards used by criminals for their monetary benefits through withdrawing money from the victim's bank account mala-fidely. There is always unauthorized use of ATM cards in this type of cyber crimes.
  

• Cheating & Fraud:
  It means the person who is doing the act of cyber crime i.e. stealing password and data storage has done it with having guilty mind which leads to fraud and cheating.
  

• Child Pornography:
  It involves the use of computer networks to create, distribute, or access materials that sexually exploit underage children.
  

• Assault by Threat:
  refers to threatening a person with fear for their lives or lives of their families through the use of a computer network i.e. E-mail, videos or phones.

2. Crimes against Property:
As there is rapid growth in the international trade where businesses and consumers are increasingly using computers to create, transmit and to store information in the electronic form instead of traditional paper documents.

There are certain offences which affects person's properties which are as follows:

• Intellectual Property Crimes:
  Intellectual property consists of a bundle of rights. Any unlawful act by which the owner is deprived completely or partially of his rights is an offence. The common form of IPR violation may be said to be software piracy, infringement of copyright, trademark, patents, designs and service mark violation, theft of computer source code, etc.
  

• Cyber Squatting:
  It means where two persons claim for the same Domain Name either by claiming that they had registered the name first on by right of using it before the other or using something similar to that previously. For example two similar names i.e. www.yahoo.com and www.yaahoo.com.
  

• Cyber Vandalism:
  Vandalism means deliberately destroying or damaging property of another. Thus cyber vandalism means destroying or damaging the data when a network service is stopped or disrupted. It may include within its purview any kind of physical harm done to the computer of any person. These acts may take the form of the theft of a computer, some part of a computer or a peripheral attached to the computer.
  

• Hacking Computer System:
  Hacktivism attacks those included Famous Twitter, blogging platform by unauthorized access/control over the computer. Due to the hacking activity there will be loss of data as well as computer. Also research especially indicates that those attacks were not mainly intended for financial gain too and to diminish the reputation of particular person or company.
  

• Transmitting Virus:
  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. Worm attacks plays major role in affecting the computerize system of the individuals.
  

• Cyber Trespass:
  It means to access someone's computer without the right authorization of the owner and does not disturb, alter, misuse, or damage data or system by using wireless internet connection.
  

• Internet Time Thefts:
  Basically, Internet time theft comes under hacking. It is the use by an unauthorized person, of the Internet hours paid for by another person. The person who gets access to someone else's ISP user ID and password, either by hacking or by gaining access to it by illegal means, uses it to access the Internet without the other person's knowledge. You can identify time theft if your Internet time has to be recharged often, despite infrequent usage.

3. Cybercrimes against Government
There are certain offences done by group of persons intending to threaten the international governments by using internet facilities. It includes:

• Cyber Terrorism:
  Cyber terrorism is a major burning issue in the domestic as well as global concern. The common form of these terrorist attacks on the Internet is by distributed denial of service attacks, hate websites and hate e-mails, attacks on sensitive computer networks etc. Cyber terrorism activities endanger the sovereignty and integrity of the nation.
  

• Cyber Warfare:
  It refers to politically motivated hacking to damage and spying. It is a form of information warfare sometimes seen as analogous to conventional warfare although this analogy is controversial for both its accuracy and its political motivation.
  

• Distribution of pirated software:
  It means distributing pirated software from one computer to another intending to destroy the data and official records of the government.
  

• Possession of Unauthorized Information:
  It is very easy to access any information by the terrorists with the aid of internet and to possess that information for political, religious, social, ideological objectives.