Current Cyber Attacks & Its Countermeasures - Coursework Example

Current Cyber Attacks & Its Countermeasures Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 ification of Cyber Attacks 4 Who causes such Cyber Attacks? 5 Different Types of Cyber Attacks 6 Remedies 7 Conclusion 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 Introduction Information technology solutions have cemented a way to a new zone of internet, e - banking, business net working and e - commerce promising as an answer to low costs, altering of the complicated financial affairs to an easier, quick, efficient, and time saving ways of connections. Internet has originated as a need for the present survival of mankind but at the same time it has also resulted in various terrors & threats to the customers, governments and private institutions. Most criminals like hackers are able to cover their way to hinder with the internet accounts through various techniques like hacking the Internet Provider’s (IP) address, Domain Name Server (DNS), spoofing, phishing and are successful in getting “unauthorized access” to the victim’s computer system and steal important data to earn substantial profits from their accounts. Planned use of information technology by cyber attackers for producing negative and harmful effects to concrete and vague possessions of others is called “cyber crime” and such attacks are known as “cyber attacks”. Cyber attack is evidently a transnational effect with no national boundaries and is a problem of the entire globe. Cyber attacks can be committed from any part of the world without the fear of being caught. Cyber attackers can crumple the whole fiscal structure of a country from a place where that country might not have any provision like “extradition agreement” to deal with those attackers. The only precaution would be to have better technology to battle such devastating mechanisms which the hackers use it often. But still it bears the threat of being broken by the smart and intellectual hackers who can possibly pose threat to the whole world (Denning P. J & Denning D. E, 2010). Classification of Cyber Attacks Cyber attacks are mostly conducted against persons, properties or the government. But mostly it has been found that it is the persons and the institutions which are the soft targets of the hackers or the attackers. The widely used cyber attacks on an individual or a person are cyber harassment, virus transmissions, transmissions of child pornography and trafficking, posting of obscene and unlawful materials over the internet. The general form of cyber attacks over property are transmission of harmful program which can affect the proper functioning of the network or the computer system, computer vandalism and destruction of other’s properties through the internet. The inflictions of attacks on the government institutions or private institutions are motivated by the gathering of inside and secret organizational information. Other causes may be to pose threat to the international government, terrorize the citizens all over the world (called as cyber terrorism), cracking on defense and government sites, intra bank transfer of funds for personal or for funding of terrorist activities and subsequently promoting global terrorism (Fisher & Nesson, n.d.) Who causes such Cyber Attacks? The cyber attackers are of various age groups and are of varied back grounds. This dissection may be right on the basis of the motive that they have in their mind. Mostly the cyber attackers are the children and the teens in their adolescence. The simple reason for this sort of criminal behavior in the youth is seen mostly because of the reason that they are inquisitive to know and explore new things. Other related reason may be to show themselves to be superior among the other children in the group. Reasons may be psychological too. Again there are the other set of attackers who are considered as the organized hackers. These kinds of hackers have a certain motive in their mind and work for a particular cause they have in their mind. The reason may be to fulfill their political prejudices. Often the nations’ encourage this type of hacking to hack into the government sites of other rival nations and break into their security. Again there are instances that the popular sites of the Pentagon or that of the NASA is targeted by the cyber attackers. Other set of attackers are the professional hackers (also sometimes termed as the ‘crackers’). Their main motive is making of money. Such hackers are mostly used by organizations or individuals to hack into the site of the rivals and get the credible, secret and valuable information. Sometimes, they are even appointed to track the system of their particular employer and then analyze the shortcomings of the employer. It can be alternatively used by the employer himself to make the system more secured and stronger. Another sort of category of people who are into cyber attacks are the discontented employees who are either fired from their respective jobs or are very much dissatisfied with the employer or the job they are doing. Thus, there is a mentality of revenge working within these individuals and sometimes they do it out of fun too. This kind of cyber attacks are mostly viewed in the developed nations (Mizrach, n d). Different Types of Cyber Attacks The most common form of cyber attack is that of hacking. It is a sort of illegal intrusion into an unauthorized computer system without the consent of the owner. Other widely used attack in recent times includes the dissemination of harmful viruses or spies. These are harmful software linked with other prime software. For example virus, worms, Trojan horses are the malicious software. Another latest phenomenon of such attacks is the denial of service. These attacks are mainly targeted so that the user cannot access a particular service which he/she wish to access. This is basically done by flooding the bandwidth of the user’s network and even filling up his mailbox with spam mails which in turn deprives him from receiving important mails. Other kinds of cyber attack which are very often experienced are the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) crime. People from any where in the world can talk with any one through this program. This has opened up all new avenues for the hackers. Criminals use it for conspiracies and to discuss on various illegal topics or to make illegal plans. Even they use it for sharing important documents that can harm the mankind. Another important issue is that of harassment to women which of a great concern for the developed as well as the developing nations. But when it comes to the question of money making by the hackers, the most widely used cyber attack is the credit card fraud. It can be committed with the credit card number into the website of the vendor for online transaction. Transactions if not secured can be harmful for the credit card users because the hackers can obtain the credit card number and further use it for their personal use. Net extortion is another crime which is going around. It is actually copying the firm’s confidential or secret data in order to extort the particular company with huge amount Software piracy is another cyber crime or attack that needs to be addressed. Theft of software i.e. the illegal imitation of original programs or the counterfeiting and supply of products aimed to over write the original version falls in the category. Much of the revenue is lost because of such crimes all across the world. Other important cyber attacks which are caused are phishing, spoofing, cyber defamation, cyber stalking, threatening, salami attacks, sale of narcotics are found to be increasing with each passing day. Cyber attacks are of great threat to every individual as well as organisations. All the parties (victims or prospective victims) need to be aware of such situations and act accordingly (Grover, n.d.). Remedies It is the alertness that will help combat cyber attack and would be a great step towards stopping this kind of illegal activities. Also, it is to be noted and taken care of that while chatting over the internet or making friends online on social community sites, sending of photograph and personal details to the unknown persons, should be always avoided otherwise such photographs or the data could be misused in the future which can bring a mental depression to the victim. It is also required to use updated, authentic, latest and genuine anti-virus software to guard against software and spy attacks. Use of duplicate and pirated software can do more harm to the computer. Thus, the use of good anti-virus software can protect the computer from outer threats. Again, while dealing with virus contaminations, it is always wishful to have back up’s so that data loss is not suffered. This is a preventive measure of a sort and very much required to be taken care of by each and every individual. To be more alert, it is advisable that no one should send any credit card number to any site that is not secured to guard against potential frauds. There are many unsecured sites operating in the network. So a thorough investigation is needed before giving the credit card number to any site. Other thing to be mostly desired is the parental vigilance. Most often children tend to deviate from their path of good and are attracted to things which are harmful for them. It is the duty of their parents to show them the right path so that they grow up towards becoming a good individual. Moreover, it might prove fatal if cookies are left unguarded, the use of firewalls may be beneficial for the user and it is to be taken care that the servers running public sites must be physically separated from the internal networking connections. It is not that by use of all these remedies that cyber attack can be eliminated all together but a conscious effort can be made to stop cyber attacks. It is indeed possessing a great threat to the development of mankind. So, all need to stand up and fight against it. It is only if people will be aware of the facts and the technicalities of keeping their computer safe, then cyber attacks and the crimes can be thoroughly eliminated from the society. All cyber criminals find a loop hole to access into other networks and only if this loop hole can be found out then this crime can be easily stopped. Thus, the new buzzword is the ethical hacking. Ethical hacking is generally targeted to find out the loopholes and then cover up these kinds of loopholes making the network more secured and better to work upon thereby, a hassle free and a system of network without any worries can be created (Nye, n.d.) Conclusion History is the witness that no nation has succeeded in completely eliminating any kind of crime from the globe and same is the case with cyber crime or attack. The merely possible step is to make public attentive and conscious of their rights and duties (to report crime as a collective duty towards the society) and further making the application of the laws more strict to check crime. The act passed have to be continuously reviewed so that it is possible to check any kind of unforeseen cyber crimes and even curb the ongoing cyber crimes. The acts should be made further strong so that the updated versions of the criminal offences can be taken care of. It can be concluded with a word of concern for the law makers that it should be kept in mind that the necessities of the cyber law should not be made so rigorous that it may retard the growth of the business and establish itself to be counter-productive. Thus, to combat such cyber attacks all people in the world has to join hands and have to be a little more alert and conscious of how they act over the internet (Howard, n.d.) References Denning P. J. & Denning D. E., 2010. Discussing Cyber Attack. George Mason University. [Online] Available at: http://cs.gmu.edu/cne/pjd/PUBS/CACMcols/cacmSep10.pdf [Accessed Aug 07, 2010]. Fisher & Nesson,. No Date. Cyber Crime Internet Law Programme. Harvard. [Online] Available at: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ilaw/mexico_2006_module_6_cybercrime [Accessed Aug 07, 2010]. Grover, No Date. Cyber Crime Case Studies. IILM. [Online] Available at: http://www.iilm.edu/downloadable-material/Guest-Lecture-Cyber-Crime-Case-Studies.pdf [Accessed Aug 07, 2010]. Howard, F. L., No Date. Tracking and Tracing Cyber-Attacks: Technical Challenges and Global Policy Issues. CERT. [Online] Available at: http://www.sei.cmu.edu/reports/02sr009.pdf [Accessed Aug 07, 2010] Mizrach, S., No Date. The Electronic Discourse of the Computer Underground. . [Online] Available at: http://www2.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/cudisc.html [Accessed Aug 07, 2010] Nye, J. S., No Date. Cyber Power. Harvard Kennedy School. . [Online] Available at: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/files/cyber-power.pdf [Accessed Aug 07, 2010] The National Fraud Center., 2000. The Growing Global Threat of Economic and Cyber Crime. . [Online] Available at: http://www.utica.edu/academic/institutes/ecii/publications/media/global_threat_crime.pdf [Accessed Aug 07, 2010] Bibliography Council of Europe. Convention on Cyber Crime. 2002. Gerdes, L. I. Cyber Crime. Greenhaven Press. 2008. Yar, M. Cyber Crime & Society. SAGE. 2006. Read More