The PC: 35 Years and Computing - Computer Crime - Essay Example

The PC: 35 years and computing – Computer Crime Introduction The advent of computers changed our lives for good. Computers made life easy and gave revolutionary progress to the area of communication, business, education etc. With the passage of time, they became an evident part of our lives and business. However, with this technical integration came another aspect that has shaken the world time after time- computer crime. Just like everything in the world has two aspects; computer usage has a dark side related to it as well. Ever since the inception of computers, some computer users pose to be a threat for the others in terms of intrusion attacks, identity thefts, viruses etc. 2. Trends of Cyber crime over the years In the mid 1970’s when the personal computer was not as common as the current times, computing attacks were done on the telephone systems for example John Draper hacked the AT&T system to make free long distance calls. Randy (2009) pointed out that he achieved to get through the respective system by a simple whistle which he got in a cereal box. Later, he came to be known as Captain Krunch. Different types of attacks have been witnessed over the years and have gotten more sophisticated with the advent of new technology. 2.1 Spam By the end of 1970s, personal computers became comparatively more accessible than earlier. This marked the start of spam emails; first spam email was sent in 1978 on ARPAnet by the CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation to disable a new computer. The spam in those times generally consisted of advertisements or promotions unlike the financial gain objectives that are hidden in them now. The current motives behind spam deal with far more severe aspects for e.g. identity frauds, online scams. Personal email addresses databases are maintained by many companies these days. Spam is sent to these recipients without their consent or permission with the alias of different forms to make them look professional. These kinds of spam emails transformed into phishing by the year 1996 and consisted of content like the announcement of winning of a lottery by the recipient or an official letter from his respective bank to update his personal details. The recipient enters his personal information in response, thinking that it is a genuine banking process. The email scammer gains the recipient’s personal information as well as banking information that can be used in any desired malicious activity. The stealing of personal information has led to the most appalling of the cyber crimes which is “identity theft”. According to the statistics provided by the Javelin Strategy & Research Center (SpendOnLife.com 2009); identity theft affected as many as 1 million people in the US in 2008. This figure has increased by a 22% since 2007. Credit card fraud is among the most common identity thefts which enables the criminal to make a purchase with someone else’s credit card number. The statistics for 2009 reveal that it was the most common identity theft as it had 26% of occurrence. 2.1.1 Response to this crime The advancement in technology has made firewalls more efficient and capable of filtering communication from unknown sources at a very reliable level. Modern firewalls are capable of ceasing all unknown communication from outside the network. Firewalls have become so efficient that they even cease communication with a host that was originally part of their network but might be mobile (out of the network) at that current point of time. Another new technology that helps in tracking down the impostor criminals is geo-location. IP geo-location helps in identifying the location from where the criminal attempts the crime. If the demographics of the credit card holder do not match the current location details of the transaction then a contradiction is witnessed and transaction is declined. 2.2 Rootkits The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of ‘rootkits’, which were mainly developed to hide the activities of intruders and hackers in UNIX systems. Koch (2007) explained that the rootkits provided the intruder with root access to the system that provided him with sole power to do anything with the machine or the data in it. But these rootkits were not as powerful or distributed in nature as advancement in technology has made the current software. The year of 1989 witnessed the advent of Trojan horses that allows the computer to be operated remotely by some hacker to access sensitive information in the system. Firewalls and anti-viruses were not efficient enough to deal with such forms of intrusions at that time. The modernization of this concept has emerged in the form of “Botnets”. Botnets are defined as an autonomous set of programs that perform functions without the aid of any user. Bots are considered to be the computer that possesses the malicious software and becomes a part of a wider network of bots i.e. botnets. According to Banday, Qadri and Shah (2009), Command and control (C&C) languages have been developed to control the automated performance of tasks by the bots. The rootkits in the past were not capable of automating such great number of distributed computers for malicious actions. Botnets have become more widespread and found almost everywhere on the internet in the form of links on social networking sites, images, online services etc. 2.2.1 Response to this crime One of the most efficient mechanisms to handle malicious actions and bots is to deploy honeybots in the network. Edwards (2008) gave the description of honeybots and explained that they are actually isolated systems that pose to be a part of connected computers. They are made to possess attractive information for the attackers so that they are made a bot and become a part of the botnet. Then, honeybots begin their endeavours to detect the master mind of the botnet in the network i.e. botnet controller and disrupt its functions. Another form of software to protect the computer from intrusion is the deployment of intrusion detection systems that shall be discussed further ahead. 2.3 Viruses Viruses have become the most feared and common computer crime and it dates back to as early as 1982. Koch (2007) stated that it was first developed by a student as a prank on a floppy installation disk. What started as a source of fun and challenges, has been modified to as serious as fatality for a system i.e. system crash or hard disk corruption. Earlier, viruses used to be aimed at bothering the computer user by displaying inappropriate messages or making the CD drive eject multiple times etc. With the passage of time, these almost harmless pranks turned into revengeful and destructive activities. Viruses became more distributed in nature. Virus Scan Software.com (2010) stated that the 1990s witnessed the launch of polymorphic virus called the “Tequila” that was powerful enough to get almost the whole world in its toll by multiplying from one file to the other. By the year 1992, it had become very easy to construct viruses as attackers did not have to depend on writing codes for viruses anymore. The first Virus Creation Laboratory (VCL) was available in the market which made it easy to do wrong. The year of 1992 also witnessed the first Windows virus that opened a new page for attackers. Then viruses became more mobile with the introduction of compact discs (CD) to the end-users. 2.3.1 Response to this attack Many anti-viruses came about in the market in all these years to control the viruses. Anti-viruses became more efficient as new technologies came in the market and were regularly updated to detect the new viruses in the market. Greater processor speeds enabled the anti-virus to function faster and detect viruses efficiently. However attackers have always been against anti-virus software due to which ‘Klex’ virus was developed in 2000. Identity Theft Secrets (2008) stated that it can be considered the first virus that had the objective to disable the anti-virus itself in the computer. Anti-virus software have now become automated in nature after the passage of the years and advancement in technology; virus scans are automatically performed on the system after regular periods of time and update themselves with respect to the newly discovered viruses by their respective organization. 2.4 Denial of Service The start of the 21st century witnessed a new crime of its kind- denial of service attack. Koch (2007) stated the information that a hacker with the name of ‘Mafiaboy’ initiated a denial of service attack against big websites like CNN, Amazon and Yahoo! in 2000. This attack was distributed in nature i.e. it was initiated from multiple sources. Denial of service attack basically involves sending mass amount of data or requests to a certain host that is more than its capability to process. Due to the overloading of fake requests, it is not able to provide service to the genuine requests and thus becomes a victim of denial of service (DoS) attack. DDos is distributed denial of service attack. 2.4.1 Response to this crime A new technology of CAPTCHAs has been introduced in the modern world of computing to ensure that the requests are initiated from a human user rather than automated from a machine. CAPTCHAs are small graphical images that contain characters. The characters in the images are supposed to be reproduced in text boxes by the end-users to ensure that no automated host is attempting a DoS attack. References Banday, MT., Qadri, JA., Shah, NA 2009, Study of Botnets and Their Threats to Internet Security, Sprouts: Working Papers on Information Systems, 9(24) Edwards, J 2008, The Rise of Botnet Infections, Network Security Journal, February, viewed 12 October 2010, Identity Theft Secrets, 2008, The Evolution of Computer Viruses and Anti Virus Protection, viewed 9th October 2010, Koch, C 2007, A Brief History of Malware and Cybercrime, CIO, 4 June Randy, J 2009, A Brief History of Cybercrime, Times, 1 June SpendOnLife.com 2009, Identity Theft Statistics, viewed 9th October 2010, http://www.spendonlife.com/guide/2009-identity-theft-statistics Virus Scan Software.com 2010, The history of computer viruses, viewed 11th October 2010, Read More