The Threat of Computer Crime - Research Proposal Example

Computer Crime Introduction: Crime in a society can be defined as the breach of law for which the legal ity of a is likely to render punishment. It is an act executed for trespassing with the laws and the accused is adjudged. Crime is a self annihilative path. The probable causes of crime are ambiguous and ever-changing. Criminals are not a product of congenital traits but they are a product of the environment by which they are surrounded. The atrocities are growing at a fast pace in today’s’ world. One of the major antisocial behavior is computer crime in the prevalent time period. Meaning: Computer crime is an offense where computers or electronic gadgets are used as a tool to carry out certain crimes. Computer crime circumscribes all sorts of illegal activities like transgression of copyrights, child pornography, hacking, etc. In this situation private and confidential facts are subject to loss or misplacement. E-crime is doubtlessly a universal issue and there will be an aberrant demand for international apportionment and collaboration. Computer criminals are becoming ever more mechanically advanced and highly developed and its an increasing confrontation to keep up with their procedures. A computer is prone to deleterious software when it is connected through internet if anti-virus software is not installed. The proliferating range of electronic gimmicks from i-pods to cell phones implies that hi-tech crime can perturb more than the personal computers. These devices are particularly exposed to assailment because they are adjustable, can be modified and revised and are frequently associated with other instruments. There are two main approaches by which computers can be associated with crime. One is the crime accompanied by using computers as a device like storage of felonious photographs on a hard disk, bedevilment using cell phones or illegitimate downloads of music and other forms of bootlegging. ‘Phishing’ bamboozle is an instance which comprises of burlesque emails and counterfeit websites to annex acute information. Other contemporary crimes are due to distinguishing technologies. One archetype is Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks where criminals can gain authority over collective computers and apply them to attack over particular destinations. Crimes also involve acquiring unofficial entrance to a computer system, or creating a virus to blot out assembled data (Computer Crime, October 2006). (See Box 1.) Box 1. Malicious software or malware The uses of malicious software ranges from having excess demand on a computer’s resources to devastation of data and hardware. Recently some kinds of malware have been formed about which user may be ignorant and it steals the authentic facts and figures like details of credit and debit card. Most common types of malware work are as follows: • Viruses infect computers or other electronic gadgets and can be transferred through emails. • Worms are used as a passage to allow attackers gaining access to the computer. • Trojans are malware in disguise of which the user may not know but want to download or install, they it performs hidden functions like permitting external access to the computer. • Spyware sends information obtained from a computer regarding bank details back to an attacker. For instance, ‘keylogging’ software records whatever is entered through keyboard, such as passwords. E- Crime has been ever-lasting in our lives. Delving crime without data means that we need to examine the crime background that is, the computer system itself. We are concerned with protecting the information. Another feature of computer crime is that no one wants to accept that it has occurred. Statistically speaking, computer criminals have less than 1 % probability of getting arrested, accused or denounced for his or her actions. But it does not imply that we cannot fight out with this situation but we can struggle hard to wipe out these offenses from our lives. How Does Today’s E- crime Distinguished from Yesterday? Today the super- hackers do not seem to be professionals also. Today they have become perfectionist in hacking computers, get hold of one’s bank accounts and social security number embezzle credit and debit card numbers, steal personal informations and can maneuver one’s individuality that one can ever think of. According to an FBI prediction, the hi-tech crime forums encircle an economy of crime that abscond U.S. businesses of $67.2 billion a year. The Consumer Reports states that during 2004 to 2006, U.S. consumers lost more than $8 billion to viruses, spy ware and online chicanery plans (Cyber crime flourishes in online hacker forums , November 2006). Consumers continue to show careless attitudes although the frequency of internet intrusions and scams are growing at a fast pace. Many recent cases have been observed like:- i. A resident of New Jersey begged for guilty for cyber attacking the website of Church of Scientology on January 2008 that depicted the websites unavailable. ii.19 years old, Dmitriy Guzner of New Jersey appealed guilty to charges on computer hacking for his act in the DDOS intrusion against the websites of Scientology. As stated by the criminal information file of United States District Court in Los Angeles, the reason behind the participation of Guzner in this crime was that he contemplated himself to be a part of the attack because he considered himself a member of a subversive association known as “Anonymous” which raised voice against the Church of Scientology. Guzner is expected to be adjudicated by United States District Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. on August 24. Because of guilty plea on May 11, 2009, Guzner encounters a statutory maximum punishment of 10 years in federal prison (“New Jersey Man Pleads Guilty To Launching Attack That Shut Down Church of Scientology”, May 2009). Evaluation: As computer crime increasingly violates the national laws, national governments should thoroughly check their present enactments to determine whether they are comfortable to brush- off these kinds of crimes. If there is any loophole, governments should come up with the best solutions or remedies or can bring in best processes from other countries and work carefully with industry to accomplish enforceable legal authorized guardianship against these new atrocities. According to the report prepared by Mc Connell International, out of 52 countries only 10 of them have ameliorated their laws in regard to the cyber crimes by which more than 50 % of the crimes are addressed which are prevalent worldwide but extra efforts are required to check these crimes so that the criminals can think twice before carrying out crimes. (Cyber Crime...and Punishment? Archaic Laws Threaten Global Information, December 2000). Anachronous laws and regulations, and poor enforcement methods for protecting vital information create an unfriendly environment to conduct e-business within a country and across national boundaries. Lack of legal protection of digital facts can create hindrances to its exchange and exploit the growth of e-commerce. As there is expansion of e-business across the globe, the requirement for strong and compatible way of protecting the networked information will increase. According to a survey conducted by Mc Connell International, out of 52 countries 33 countries have not amended their laws in context to address any kind of computer crime. Those are Albania, Bulgaria, Burundi, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Gambia, Hungary, Iceland, Iran, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Malta, Moldova, Morocco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Romania, South Africa, Sudan, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Nine out of the rest have enacted legislation to address fewer numbers of crimes. It includes countries like Brazil, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Malaysia, Poland, Spain and United Kingdom. The other ten countries that have made some changes in their laws to prosecute against six to ten kinds of crimes are Australia, Canada, Estonia, India, Japan, Mauritius, Peru, Philippines, Turkey and United States. Hence it is seen that only 36.54% of the countries have full or partial amendment of cyber laws (Cyber Crime...and Punishment? Archaic Laws Threaten Global Information, December 2000). The penalties provided to the criminals differ from country to country. In Unites States, Philippines and Mauritius the penalties for conviction are much stronger compared to other countries. Continuation of the cyber laws into the cyber world is a very crucial step to create a reliable environment for the common people and business ventures. The organizations need to defend themselves from the network of attackers, thus they need to implement plans relating to technology and society issues. They need to channel their resources to educate their staffs and employees regarding security methods, build up models to protect their sensitive and personal informations and incorporate powerful technology for security purposes like firewall, antivirus software, etc. However, these system- protection devices are very expensive and complicated in nature. Thus in order to avoid problem and expenses the system administrators leave the features “turned- off”. Further, there is no such universal methodology for any of the organizations to invest an exact amount of money. Therefore, much of the work is left to improve the quality of managing the securities of the computer system. Global Information Security Summit supported by the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (www.witsa.org) gathered industry, governments, and multilateral agencies across sectors to share facts and develop partnerships. This summit will give an opportunity to reappear the progress of countries in amending laws to cover crimes related to computers. Although progress is made by most of the countries, still they depend mostly on the worldly laws for prosecution of cyber crimes. The weak and poor penalties associated with the cyber crimes enables the criminals to carry out their deeds most effectively which lead to large- scale socio-economic repercussions. Most of the developing nations are seeking for a model to follow .These countries in order to achieve a healthy secured and peaceful environment want to identity and prohibit the malicious computer related actions within a specified range of time (Cyber Crime...and Punishment? Archaic Laws Threaten Global Information, December 2000). Possible Consequences of Computer Crime: Cyber crime can result in losing of valuable confidential information leading to immense loss of the victim. We will go thorough the aspects of data theft and misinformation in details. Out of the above two the most obnoxious is the data theft. The attacker can break into the system; steal the records without leaving any trace of him if the victim is not conscious of safeguarding his system. If there is no such proper measure to detect theft then the attacker will not be caught. Data theft leaves no such gap to identify the intruder. Thus while investigating data theft one should keep in mind to discover the theft and try to find out the source and origin of the theft. There are various causes for not detecting the intruder of data theft. One such reason is that the server does not log in the READ actions. So, an option is required to check whether a file has been accessed or not. One of the most delicate file is the password file which can be hacked easily although today there are ways to protect the password, still the older machines does not have such features. The attacker enters into the system by logging in and carries out READ function to steal the password. Then he or she logs off by sterilizing the logs of the system. The intruder conceals his identity by simple ways. One is while logging in the intruder checks for the notification whether the owner of the machine was the last person to log in then the attacker uses rlogin function to get hold of the password. Misinformation is a kind of intelligence used in the corporate world. It means changing or misinterpreting the useful information or data by providing false perception about any activities or plans. Organizations also use misinformation to misguide people from getting into the hidden facts. One such misinformation is changing the crucial files and thus misguiding the employees. Another is alteration of the fact that generates the revenue maximizing result by showing lower revenue than expected. The others are adjustment of the data in the database to produce erroneous results or alteration of certain testimonials like educational credential, birth certificate, passports, etc. One way to arrest an intruder is to provide him with an alluring target and check whether he is taking advantage of such entice. The use of instruments such as honey pots or goat files is used to catch the intruders. Statistically speaking most of the attacks comes from within the organizations. These attacks are not easy to detect however, the investigators of the corporate houses apply selective measures on the system and also get the cooperation from the administrator’s side (Investigating computer-related crime, 1999). Statistics: The Internet Crime Complaint Center established in May 8, 2000 is responsible for receiving, processing and referring the crimes related to cyber. From the chart we can see that 275,284 complaints have been filed in the year 2008 which is showing 33.1% increase compared to the year 2007. In the year of 2000 there were only 16,838 complaints which continued to get doubled every year till 2004. From 2004 onwards till 2007 it remained in the same doorstep. In the year 2008 the number of complaints increased to 275,284 (2008 Internet Crime Report). (See Chart 1.) Chart 1. (2008 Internet Crime Report) The year 2008 has seen maximum complaints of 32.9% in the case of non- delivered commodities. 25.5% was recorded to be internet auction fraud. Credit/ Debit Card Fraud, Confidence Fraud, computer fraud, check fraud, Nigerian letter fraud, Identity theft, financial institutions fraud and threat accounted for 7.9%, 6.2%, 5.4%, 2.8%, 2.5%, 2.2%, and 1.9% respectively (2008 Internet Crime Report). (See Chart 2) Chart 2: (2008 Internet Crime Report) A major issue of the cyber crime is the average monetary loss borne by the individuals who are complaining to the Crime Center. Out of the 72,940 complaints made during 2008, 63,382 have incurred a monetary loss. The total dollar loss in 2008 was reported to be $264.6 million (2008 Internet Crime Report). (See Chart 3) Chart 3 (2008 Internet Crime Report) Recommendations: The property owners should take logical and rational steps to protect their properties so as to enforce laws relating to property rights. Firms should make their own information system safer and secured rather than depending more on the networking information. The governments of the nations are supposed to remain controlling authority for regulating the crimes associated within the society. The present laws ought to be amended and altered. On the whole, the organizations, households and the government should unite themselves to attain a secured place in cyber space by strengthening their legal framework. Together they should develop measures to enforce effective international laws and promote growth and innovation for their respective nations. References 1. Acohido, B, Swartz, J (November 10, 2006). Cyber crime flourishes in online hacker forums USA Today, available at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/infotheft/2006-10-11-cybercrime-hacker-forums_x.htm (Accessed on June 4, 2009) 2. Computer Crime (October 2006). Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, available at: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn271.pdf (Accessed on June 4, 2009) 3. CYBER CRIME . . . AND PUNISHMENT? Archaic Laws Threaten Global Information (December 2000). A Report Prepared by Mc Connell International, available at: http://www.witsa.org/papers/McConnell-cybercrime.pdf (Accessed on June 4, 2009) 4. Icove, D, Seger, K, VonStorch, W (1995). Computer crime: a crimefighters handbook, OReilly & Associates, US 5. O’ Brien, T (May 11. 2009). NEW JERSEY MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO LAUNCHING ATTACK THAT SHUT DOWN CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY WEBSITES, available at: http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/guznerPlea2.pdf (Accessed on June 4, 2009) 6. Stephenson, P (1999). Investigating computer-related crime, CRC Press, US 7. ‘2008 Internet Crime Report’. Internet Crime Complaint Center, available at: http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreport/2008_IC3Report.pdf (Accessed on June 5, 2009) ‘ Read More