Cyber Crime: Practices and Policies for Its Prevention Ajeet Singh Poonia Department of Computer Science and Engineering College of Engineering and Technology, Bikaner, India. [email protected] Dr. Awadesh Bhardwaj Department of Management Studies Malviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India. [email protected] Dr. G. S. Dangayach Department of Mechanical Engineering Malviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India. [email protected]
Abstract- Cyber civilization considers I. INTRODUCTION knowledge as an integral part of society Cyber crime is different from and human systems. With the facilities of Conventional crime (“a legal wrong that can cyber civilization the evils of cyber be followed by criminal proceedings which civilization also need to be equally tackled may result into punishment.”(1)). Cyber through technological as well as social crime is the latest and perhaps the most means. The phenomenal growth of complicated problem in the cyber world. It is computers and Internet services has defined as “Any criminal activity that uses a engendered the problem of cyber crime computer either as an instrumentality, target proliferation on the account of or a means for perpetuating further crimes investigation difficulties and lack of strong comes within the ambit of cyber crime” (2 A evidences further, existing laws and generalized definition of cyber crime may be preventive measures are not effective to “ unlawful acts wherein the computer is curb such crimes. So to cope up with the either a tool or target or both”(3)) situation we have to modify the old .Cybercrime is also substantially different policies and practices to meet our security from computer crime. It's like the difference needs. Also we can see that the crimes are between people who use computers for all coming in new forms embedded with new they can be versus people who use technologies, which is very difficult to computers as a tool like a typewriter. Cyber investigate with the available resources. crime is hard to detect, thus giving the To stand with them we need a hi-tech perpetrators plenty of time to flee the area in technology enabled security system and which the crime was committed, because of investigators along with the awareness this fact the criminals can be in another among the common man, as today’s crime country far away from the scene of the crime have no defined boundaries by the time it is detected. Computer is a Keywords- Cyber civilization, Cyber major source for cyber crime. Cyber crime is crime, cyber ethics, cyber world any illegal activity arising from one or more Internet components. Cybercrime can
include everything from non-delivery of goods or services and computer intrusions to
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49.1 Ajeet Singh Poonia, Dr. Awadesh Bhardwaj, and Dr. G. S. Dangayach intellectual property rights abuses, economic temptation to reproduce copyrighted material espionage, online extortion, international either for personal use or for sale at a lower money laundering, and a growing list of price. other Internet-facilitated offenses. Further, it 3) Electronic Money Laundering is not easy to identify immediately about the crime method used, and to answer questions For some time now electronic funds like where and when it was done. transfers have assisted in concealing and moving the proceeds of crime. Emerging technologies make it easier to hide the origin II. WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT and destination of funds transfer. Thus CYBER CRIME? money laundering comes to the living room. Cyber crimes—harmful acts 4) Electronic Vandalism and Terrorism committed from or against a computer or All societies in which computers play a network—differ from most terrestrial crimes major role in everyday life are vulnerable to .They are easy to learn how to commit; they attack from people motivated by either require few resources relative to the potential curiosity or vindictiveness. These people can damage caused; they can be committed in a cause inconvenience at best and have the jurisdiction without being physically present potential to inflict massive harm. in it; and they are often not clearly illegal. 5) Sales and Investment Fraud Existing terrestrial laws against physical acts of trespass or breaking and As electronic commerce or e-commerce entering often do not cover their “virtual” as it is called becomes more and more counterparts. Web pages such as the popular, the application of digital technology ecommerce sites recently hit by widespread, to fraudulent crime will become that much distributed denial of service attacks4 may not greater. be covered by outdated laws as protected 6) Illegal Interception of Information forms of property. Developments in telecommunications as A. Types of Cyber Crime well as data transfer over the net have Cyber Crime comes in many forms resulted in greater speed and capacity but and in many ways. Below mentioned are the also greater vulnerability. It is now easier different types of Cyber crime: than ever before for unauthorized people to gain access to sensitive information. 1) Communications in Furtherance of Criminal Conspiracies 7) Cyber Pornography Just as legitimate organizations use the Spread of Child pornography and information networks for record keeping and sexually implicit material. communication, so too are the activities of 8) Information Piracy and Forgery criminal organizations enhanced by the advent of information technology. There is Digital technology permits perfect evidence of information systems being used reproduction of the original documents, in drug trafficking, gambling, money examples are birth certificates, passport, laundering and weapons trade just to name a false identity, counterfeiting of currency, few. negotiable instruments etc. 2) Telecommunications Piracy 9) Hacking Digital technology permits perfect Information theft from computers hard reproduction and easy dissemination of print, disk, removal storage etc. Data theft, data graphics, sound, and multimedia destroy, stealing and altering information. combinations. This has produced the
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49.2 Cyber Crime: Practices and Policies for Its Prevention
10) Internet time thefts are unlikely to notice this small change but the employee will make a significant By stealing user name and password, earning. criminals use for themselves and steal the internet time allotted to the purchaser. 5) Logic Bomb 11) Hate/Communal Crimes This is an event dependent program. This implies that this program is created to do As building a web page is not expensive something only when a certain event occurs and reaches to billions of people, criminals spread hate or communal information or 6) Virus/Worm attack rumours, by building a website and also A virus is a program, which attaches recruits people for their operation through itself to another file or a system and then advertisement. circulates to other files and to other 12) Altering Websites computers via a network. They usually affect computers by either altering or deleting data The hacker deletes some pages of a from it. Worms on the other hand do not website, uploads new pages with the similar interfere with data. They simply multiply name and controls the messages conveyed by until they fill all available space on the the web site. computer. B. Penetration methods of Cyber crime 7) Trojan attack There are various methods through which the crime is penetrated into the A Trojan is a program, which appears to computer, network, hardware, software or in be something useful but under the disguise of your cell phone. They are: a useful program causes some damage. 1) Unauthorized access 8) Denial of service attack Unauthorized access also known as This involves flooding the computer cracking as opposed to hacking, means resource with more requests than it can gaining access to a system without handle. This causes the resource to crash, permission of the users or without proper thereby denying the authorized users the authority. This is generally done either by service. fake identity, or by cracking access codes. 9) Distributed denial of service 2) E-mail bombing This is a denial of service attack in which This means sending a large number of the perpetrators are more than one in number and geographically displaced. It is very mails to the victim resulting in the victims difficult to control such attacks. mail account (in case of individual) or server (in case of corporations) crashing. 10) E-mail spoofing 3) Data diddling A spoofed email is one, which appears to This kind of attack involves altering the originate from one source but actually originates from another. raw data before it is processed by a system and re-altering it after processing. 11) Phishing 4) Salami attack In a typical phishing scam, phishers send This is generally used to commit out emails which appear to come from a legitimate company, in an attempt to scam financial crimes. Here the key is to make the users into providing private information that alteration so small that in a single case it will be used for identity theft. Phishers use a would go unnoticed. For example a bank variety of sophisticated devices to steal employee deducts five rupees from every information—including pop-up windows, customers account. The individual customers
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49.3 Ajeet Singh Poonia, Dr. Awadesh Bhardwaj, and Dr. G. S. Dangayach
URL masks which simulate real Web means to decrypt a password, or to bypass a addresses, and keystroke loggers that capture protection scheme. Another form of what you type, such as account names and password cracking attack is all possible passwords. combinations of letters, numbers and symbols are tried out one by one, till the 12) Pharming password is found out. It is an attempt to defraud Internet surfers by hijacking a Web site’s domain name, or 4. Buffer Overflow URL, and redirecting users to an imposture A buffer overflow occurs when a Web site where fraudulent requests for program or process tries to store more data in information are made. a buffer (temporary data storage area) than it was intended to hold. In buffer overflow
attacks, the extra data may contain codes III. TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES USED designed to trigger specific actions, in effect IN CYBER CRIME sending new instructions to the attacked Unauthorized Access is the main tool computer that could, for example, damage used by Criminals. Following are the the user’s file, change data, or disclose common techniques used for unauthorized confidential information. As the excess data access. “overflows” into other areas of the computer’s memory. This allows the hacker 1. Port Scanner to insert executable code along with the A port scan is a method used by hackers input, thus enabling the hacker to break into to determine which ports are open or in use the computer. on a system or network. By using various 5. Keylogger tools a hacker can send data to TCP or UDP ports one at a time. Based on the response Keylogger is a software program or received the port scan utility can determine if hardware device that is used to monitor and that port is in use. Using this information the log each of the keys a user types into a hacker can then focus their attack on the computer keyboard. The user who installed ports that are open and try to exploit any the program or hardware device can then weaknesses to gain access. view all keys typed in by that user. Because these programs and hardware devices 2. Packet Sniffing monitor the keys typed in a user can easily Packet sniffing is the act of capturing find user passwords and other information a packets of data flowing across a computer user may not wish others to know about. network. The software or device used to do this is called a packet sniffer. Packet sniffing is to computer networks what wire tapping is IV. CAUSE OF CYBER CRIME to a telephone network. Packet sniffing has 1) Capacity to store data in comparatively legitimate uses to monitor network small space performance or troubleshoot problems with network communications. The computer has unique characteristic of storing data in a very small space. This 3. Password Cracking affords to remove or derive information All systems cache, passwords in memory either through physical or virtual medium during, login session. Therefore, if a hacker makes it much easier. can gain access to all memory on the system, 2) Easy to access he can likely sift the memory for passwords. Likewise, hackers can frequently sift page The problem encountered in guarding a files for passwords. To crack a password computer system from unauthorised access is that there is every possibility of breach not
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49.4 Cyber Crime: Practices and Policies for Its Prevention due to human error but due to the complex to few vulnerabilities that exist in technology. By secretly implanted logic information technology. bomb, key loggers that can steal access 8) Poor response from Law Enforcing codes, advanced voice recorders; retina Agencies imagers etc. that can fool biometric systems and bypass firewalls can be utilized to get Many developing countries lack past many a security system. appropriate law to tackle the cyber crime attackers. Due to this the criminal are far 3) Complex from reach and easily get rid of punishments. The computers work on operating systems and these operating systems in turn are composed of millions of codes. Human V. CYBER-CRIME INVESTIGATIONS mind is fallible and it is not possible that While most businesses lack the there might not be a lapse at any stage. The requisite in-house resources and technical cyber criminals take advantage of these know-how to carry out sophisticated cyber- lacunas and penetrate into the computer crime investigations, nevertheless, there are system. some basic steps which they can take to 4) Negligence assist the authorities in unravelling these offences. These are as follows: Negligence is very closely connected with human conduct. It is therefore very 1) Scope of Losses probable that while protecting the computer The first step in any cyber-crime system there might be any negligence, which investigation should be to determine the in turn provides a cyber criminal to gain extent of the loss incurred. Where the access and control over the computer system. financial losses are negligible, but 5) Loss of evidence nevertheless distasteful, consideration should be given to other options open to Loss of evidence is a very common & management. This should be done prior to obvious problem as all the data are routinely committing resources to any costly and destroyed. Further collection of data outside timeconsuming investigation. For example, the territorial extent also paralyses this where an insider is involved, as the case of system of crime investigation. an unauthorized use, termination is a viable 6) Motivation option. Intellectual challenge of mastering 2) Regulatory Directives complex system was the motivation in the Where funds and financial records are past for criminals, but presently criminals are involved, banks and other financial driven by greed, lust, power, revenge, institutions are frequently required by adventure. The desire to inflict loss or governmental mandates to investigate and damage or revenge is the present motivation report their findings to the authorities. A for criminals. failure to do so could expose the 7) Opportunities organization to civil and/or criminal sanctions; as well as civil litigation, in the Growth of computing abilities in event that customer financial accounts or banking, stock exchange, air traffic control, records are involved. telephones, electric power, health welfare institution and education, has though brought 3) Adverse Publicity down the cost leading to revolutionary Cyber-crimes have become so pervasive changes in commerce, communications, in the corporate sector, as to almost entertainment and education, and is constitute the norm. Nevertheless, their providing more criminal opportunities owing
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49.5 Ajeet Singh Poonia, Dr. Awadesh Bhardwaj, and Dr. G. S. Dangayach public disclosure can result in damaging to sensitive data secure. Changing them publicity for the corporate victim. frequently and keeping them sufficiently Management should consider the necessary complex in the first place can do this. steps to minimize any potential damages • Safe surfing: Safe surfing involves ensuing from such disclosure(s). This is keeping ones e-mail address private, not especially necessary where law requires such chatting on open systems, which do not disclosures. have adequate protection methods, 4) Prosecuting Cyber-Crime visiting secure sites. Accepting data from While every state - and the federal only known users, downloading government – have cyber-crime laws on the carefully, and then from known sites also books, these frequently vary in terms of their minimizes risk. scope and the sanctions they impose. While • Frequent virus checks: One should data crimes may result in tough sanctions frequently check ones computer for under some state cyber-crime laws, they may viruses and worms. Also any external result in little or no penal sanctions in other media such as floppy disks and CD jurisdictions. ROMS should always be virus checked 5) Occurrence of Crime before running. In those cases where a cyber-crime is not • Email filters: These are programs, which current -‘stale’ is the term the authorities use monitor the inflow of mails to the inbox to describe crimes that occurred months or and delete automatically any suspicious years in the past, but were only recently or useless mails thus reducing the discovered - investigating it for purposes of chances of being bombed or spoofed. prosecution could prove difficult and bear • Always avoid sending any photograph little fruition. In addition, the evidence may online particularly to strangers and chat have been destroyed or accidentally erased; friends as there have been incidents of witnesses may have left the area, the culprit misuse of the photographs. may prove difficult to locate, etc. Further, the authorities are likely to show little or no • Always keep back up volumes so that interest in prosecuting an offence that is one may not suffer data loss in case of stale; since it will spark little or no interest virus contamination by the public or the press. • Never send your credit card number to any site that is not secured, to guard against frauds. VI. PRACTICES RECOMMENDED FOR CYBER CRIME PREVENTION • Always keep a watch on the sites that your children are accessing to prevent Prevention is always better than cure. any kind of harassment or depravation in It is always better to take certain precaution children. while operating the net. • It is better to use a security programme
• Firewalls: These are programs, which that gives control over the cookies and protect a user from unauthorized access send information back to the site as attacks while on a network. They provide leaving the cookies unguarded might access to only known users, or people prove fatal. who the user permits. • Web site owners should watch traffic and • Frequent password changing: With the check any irregularity on the site. Putting advent of multi-user systems, security hostbased intrusion detection devices on has become dependent on passwords. servers may do this. Thus one should always keep passwords
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49.6 Cyber Crime: Practices and Policies for Its Prevention
• Web servers running public sites must be and issue in the development of a cyber physically separate protected from society, is the lack of financial and internal corporate network. trained human resources. • Make Backups of Important Files and • A strong education system should be Folders to protect important files and followed in the society to deliver records on your computer if your education at every stage of the society computer malfunctions or is destroyed by with a special stress on Information a successful attacker? Technology which should be secure and free from cyber crime and in reach to a
• Disconnect from internet when not in common man. use. • Promotion of Research & Development
• Habitually download security protection in ICTs area and also in Human Resource update patches & Keep your browser and Development as a core part of the system operating system up to date. • Up to date, common, and mutually • Change administrator’s password from supporting cyber laws should be there to the default password. If the wireless fight with cyber crime and protection of network does not have a default intellectual property rights towards the password, create one and use it to protect creation of cyber crime free information the network. society. • Disable file sharing on computers. • Adoption of ICTs standards, regulation, • Turn off the network during extended and quality assurance to foster high periods of non-use, etc. quality and secure services and productions that keep competition in • Check your online account frequently place for the benefits of the communities and make sure all listed transactions are within each country. valid. Use a variety of passwords, not same for all of your account. • High levels of awareness among the each part of the society should be there in • Never respond to text messages from regard to information security and cyber someone you don't know. crime and increased exchange of • Never let someone you don't know use information on information security and your cell phone and avoid posting your cyber crime at the regional and national cell phone number online. levels should be there. • Open email attachment carefully • Effective mechanisms should be there for detection and prevention of cyber crime
and improving protection against, VII. POLICIES RECOMMENDED FOR detection of, and responses to, cyber CYBER CRIME PREVENTION crime, at the lower level itself. Other than the prctices discussed • Conduct national user awareness above, some polocies are also recommended campaigns for the general user, including for the code of cyber society, to be at safer children and young people, educational side.These policies should be bring into institutions, consumers, government practical part so that the prctices are easier to officials and the private sector, using implement.Policies recommended are: different media. • Integrated policies are required to ensure • Educate and involve the media the effective benefits from the professionals, and then encourage them Information system. The basic challenge to increase public awareness.
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49.7 Ajeet Singh Poonia, Dr. Awadesh Bhardwaj, and Dr. G. S. Dangayach
• Engage large private sector corporations no doubt that the Internet offers criminals and industry associations in the unparalleled opportunities. And its time we sponsorship of awareness programs. did something to protect ourselves. Information is the best form of protection. • Stress should be laid on less developed Concrete measures must be found in order to countries on effective systems, for track electronics evidence, classify the protection against, detection of and material that needs to be search, and their responses to, cyber crime. preservation, so that systems are better • Promote and support the use of filtering, protected from cyber intrusions. In addition, rating, parental control and related new rules and regulations must be developed software, as well as measures for the by law enforcement agencies to address the establishment of safe environments for various families of computer crime the use of the Internet by children. • Law enforcement personnel must be REFERENCES trained and equipped to address high-tech crimes. [1] Computer Vulnerabilities, Eric Knight, CISSP, Electronic Edition, March 2000, release 4 • Legal systems should permit the [2] Granville Williams preservation of and quick access to [3] Duggal Pawan electronic data, which are often critical to the successful investigation of crime. [4] Nagpal R. – What is Cyber Crime? [5] The Little Black Book of Computer Viruses, • Mutual assistance regimes must ensure Mark Ludwig, Electronic Edition, American the timely gathering and exchange of Eagle Publications, 1996 evidence in cases involving international [6] Cyber Crime (article), Silicon Times, Vol. 2, high-tech crime. Issue 12, December 2002 • Use our established network of [7] Singer, P. (1993) Practical Ethics, 2nd edition knowledgeable personnel to ensure a (p.10), Cambrdige: Cambridge University Press timely, effective response to [8] Management Information Systems Quarterly, transnational high-tech cases and Volume 10, Number 1, March, 1986 .The Need designate a point-of-contact who is for Ethics Education in Computer Curriculum by available on a 24-hour basis. John A. N. Lee [9] Bangkok International Summit (2007) • Prevention is better than cure. Awareness Declaration on Policing Cyberspace K. raising, education, and technical support Jaishankar[1] Manonmaniam Sundaranar to prevent e-crime is essential, but University, Tirunelveli, India Bessie Pang[2]. without discouraging the development of The Society for the Policing of Cyberspace e-commerce. (POLCYB), Canada .Stuart Hyde[3] Assistant Chief Constable, West Midlands Police, United Kingdom VIII. CONCLUSION [10] Sylvia Kierkegaarda, Online child protection, Cybering, online grooming and ageplay, With the information highway having Computer Law & Security Report Volume 24, entered our very homes, we are all at Issue 1, 2008, Pages 41-55. increasing risk of being affected by [11] David Wrighta, Serge Gutwirthb, Michael Cybercrime. Everything about our lives is in Friedewaldc, Paul De Hertb, Marc Langheinrichd some manner affected by computers. Under and Anna Moscibrodab, Privacy, trust and policy- making: Challenges and responses Computer the circumstances its high time we sat up and Law & Security Report, Volume 25, Issue 1, took notice of the events shaping our 2009, Pages 69-83. destinies on the information highway. [12] Rolf H. Webera, Transparency and the Cybercrime is everyone’s problem. There is governance of the Internet, Computer Law &
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49.8 Cyber Crime: Practices and Policies for Its Prevention
Security Report, Volume 24, Issue 4, 2008, Pages 342-348. [13] Ramifications of Cyber Crime and Suggestive Preventive Measures.Jivesh Govil, SJtiuvdeesnht GMoevmilb, eSrt,uIdEeEntE M ember, IEEE and Jivika Govil Dept. of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA [email protected] Jivika Govil Dept. of Information Tech. and Computer Science Apeejay College of Engineering, MD University Gurgaon, Haryana, India [email protected] [14] A Guide To Cyber-Crime Investigations ,August Bequai,Legal Editor,7921~otws Branch Drive, Suite 133, Mcban, VA 22102, 1JSA. [15] Cyber Crime Information System for Cyberethics Awareness A.B. Patki S. Lakshminarayanan S. Sivasubramanian S.S. Sarma (Authors are with Department of Information Technology, Government of India)
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