Evolution and Types of Cybercrime

https://www.coursera.org/learn/cyber-conflicts/lecture/MeWFG/evolution-and-types-of-cybercrime


We've had a history of crime in this world. And all kinds of crime from murder to other capital crimes, to basically forgery and fraud. And basically, bullying, all of these are different kinds of crimes at different levels.

So, why is the internet important today? Why is cyber crime so important? What the cybercrime has done is, it has taken a lot of the crimes that we had in the street. And they have or given them another vector in which they can be coveted.

Cybercrime today is defined as a crime that utilizes computers and networks.

However, there are three distinct acts of crimes where the computer is a target, weapon, or just a facilitator.

In the first case, computer is a target. It involves activities such as theft, destruction, disruption of data services and software. In the second case, the computer is a weapon which involves using a computer to launch attacks such as cyberbullying, pornography, child pornography, spam, ect.

And in the third case, computer is a facilitator which involves supporting traditional crime such as robbery, murder, and terrorism, ect. Support of that crime, either through recruitment or through trying to find out what they can, learn about the victims, and using this for solicitation.

Cybercrime is generally considered as a regular crime with a new

in the internet, but it differs quite a bit. Well, the difference is the scale and the reach of the crime using automatic scanning tools and bots attacks can be launched across millions of peoples within minutes. And within hours, the entire globe could be covered with the same virus, worm, or anything else.

How did it evolve? Cybercrime really started as a hobby of bored computer scientists and young students, whose primary goal was to demonstrate their prowess and show their hacking abilities to the community of their peers. And if there were hacking groups, underground clubs, that provided support to these activities. And they were basically trying to outdo each other. Even though some of the attacks caused serious financial damage, the perpetrators seldom gained any financial remuneration from the attacks. And in most cases, the victims are random without any specific targets. However, since the 2000s, there had been a gradual shift towards more organized crime and criminal networks, rather than individual hackers.

Cybercrime has become big business. And as you can see from a spate of cybercrimes and the breaches that have happened recently. They are getting targeted toward companies which have deep financial pockets from which they can make money.

What are people using the cybercrime for? For stealing passwords. For stealing credit card numbers. For stealing financial information. So that they can actually benefit from this. There's a huge market out there where you can buy stolen credit card numbers. And to the extent that in case of credit card does not work or have been closed, you can actually get a refund back. So, it is a real business today.

There are several way in which cybercrime can occur. You know, one of the most attacks of information in which computer and networks have reached in order to collect information such as credit card, trade secrets, information about dissidence, and information involve large corporations where hackers break in by breaching security or from individual where hackers have it inside the organizations.

And they use all kinds of information like social engineering, phishing messages, just to con employees of organizations into revealing information that will allow them to break in. The second type of priming involves extortion, where criminal gangs breach the security and threaten to destroy the data and infrastructure. Or reveal private information in case hush or protection money is paid.

And the third involves fraud on the Internet, and this can take many forms. It usually involves providing false information to a specific individual or to the entire community. For instance, stock prices can be manipulated by fabricating positive or negative information, and then disseminating widely among market participants. And it has happened before. It has led to markets going up and going down, and specific stocks crashing.

Another part of crime is called Identity theft, in which, hackers can assume the entity of the victim and assume their persona on the internet to make online transactions. People have bought cars on other people's identities, they have run debts to hundred of thousands of dollars. And the problem becomes for the victim then to go and clear their name out, to get their credit history restored, and it's a horrendous problem. One key issue which is not really a part of traditional crime, a cybercrime that is considered today is media virus and distribution. This has always been a controversial topic with a societal divide on the culpability of the perpetrators and the morality of such practices. On one hand, people are offended by the greed and the ability to make money for the large corporations which are selling music. And on the other hand, we have the people who are objecting to this as a theft of information, theft of intellectual property.

And so given that this is such a prevalent means of getting music and other media, this is becoming a very societal and a social issue. In the long run, laws are created by the societal norms. And in this case, the societal norms seem to have changed. So, this is another thing that we'll discuss in depth and figure out where public opinion on this lies.

The cybercrime can also be classified based on sophistication of technique that are used, and can vary from highly technical to highly social. Technical crimes involve intruding into computers, the networks, and including phishing, identity theft, denial of service, spoofing attacks, manipulation of data services, or committing fraud. And the characteristics of these crimes include, generally, a singular or discrete event from the prospective of the victim.

And it's usually facilitated by malicious software such as keystroke loggers, bots, spyware viruses, backdoor, or trojan horses. These are all the means in which crime can be done.

But it can be facilitated by exploiting different vulnerabilities.

And the characteristics of the social crime include, generally, using legitimate tools such as forum social media, messaging applications and dating websites, and they are generally repeated contacts or events from prospect of the user. And the activities such as stalking, harassment, child predation, extortion, blackmail, complex corporate espionage, and cyberterrorism. All of these are a part of the social crime or the social way they literally can do crime.

And having talked about this, in the next segment, we will talk about the active motivations of cybercrime. How do we solve cybercrime and solve the International issues in cybercrime? Thank you. This is the end of the first module in lecture one.