Cyber-crime and its art crafts

Evolution in the field of information technology is transforming our society which has created many problems in which cybercrime is included. It has a vast range of applications. It has directly or indirectly affected many sectors of our society. Cybercrime is an act that is committed with the help of a computer as a tool or target unlawfully. In cybercrime, many traditional crimes such as fraud, defamation, mischief, theft, and misery are involved. Cybercrime is mainly categorized in two ways one is the computer as a weapon and the second is a computer as a target. Computer as a weapon involves Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) violations, cyber terrorism, credit card frauds, etc. While, computer as target consists of a virus, DOS attacks, hacking, etc.

Traditional crimes are committed in geographical locations, but cybercrimes do not need any geographical location because these are committed online that's why a coordinated global response is required for the problem of cybercrime. Some of the problems lead to the cybercriminal. Criminology involves the motivational understanding of criminals by analyzing their affairs. However, in cybercrimes, the most important point is to consider internet access. Cybercrime’s execution requires that the criminal’s degree of skills and knowledge is greater and better than the knowledge and skills of an average computer person.

UK law enforcement agencies divided cybercrimes into three categories.

  • A computer can be a target of any criminal activity such as when a laptop is stolen or visiting a website that is the victim of a denial-of-service attack.
  • A computer can act as an intermediary network such as hack into a computer to steal important documentation of any business or individually related.
  • A computer can act as an intermediary facilitator such as when a computer performs as an offending medium it aids the contact between offenders because it (computer) can enable communication between offenders in a near relatively instantaneous globally accessible.

The Additional Protocol to the Convention of Cybercrime came into existence on March 1, 2006. Moreover, a definition has utilized criminological theory to clarify completely what is cybercrime. The definition is designed for safety and indication of any violation of confidentiality, availability, and integrity of a computer system.

The European Commission decided to establish a partnership in the field of cybersecurity for investment. At that time, it was decided that the EU would invest 450 million Euros wrote down in the framework as a part of the multi-year investment for research and development purposes of the Union Horizon of 2020. It was estimated that time that by 2020 1.8 billion euros will be invested in it.

Pakistani Parliament approved a change to the cybercrime law in August 2016 which included severe punishments for cybercrime or cyberterrorism of 14 years imprisonment and 75000 dollars.

In early September 2016, the Malaysian government created a court for cyber affairs which included 27 judges who serve in court and went through training on cyberspace and cyber forensic.

 

Types of Cybercrimes:

 

  • Hacking and Cracking:

Hacking is when someone is breaking into a computer or network. Hackers use code and ready-made programs to enter into a computer or to attack their target computers. They hack for personal gains such as stealing credit card info., transferring money from bank accounts, business rivals, etc. Cracking means inserting any worm or virus into the computer that can damage the whole system or any part of the disk. If you hack any webserver to take control of any person's website it is known as web hijacking.

 

  • Cybertheft

Stealing personal or financial information of a person by using a computer for making it able of illegal use or any fraud's relevant content is known as cyber theft. It includes identity, hardware, and internet theft.  Identity theft involves with illegal use of someone's personal information, hardware theft deals with the theft or stealing of someone's peripheral part of a computer including internet hours theft includes with theft of using someone's paid internet.

 

  • Unauthorized access:

It means gaining access or entry into anybody’s resources of a computer instructing or communicating with arithmetical, logical, and memory functions. It means accessing someone's system without the permission of its rightful owner.

 

  • Defamation:

It includes tarnishing or ruining the identity, image, respect, or dignity of a person in front of society's rightful members. It can be treated as an infringement of any person's right to his good name. Such as, someone publishes tarnish material about any person on any website or through E-mails. Cyber smearing is another name of cyber defamation.

 

  • Cyberstalking:

Another type of cybercrime is cyberstalking which is common nowadays because many creepy people stalk other persons through social media by posting messages or any threatening material which shows that you're followed by another person. It can be defined as threatening behavior of cybercriminals or harassment of victims by using internet services. It refers to that type of stalking which involves the internet, social media, emails, or any other electronic communication medium. Unfortunately, it is an alarming issue right now.

 

  • Virus hoax email:

Nowadays another issue is viral which is virus hoax email. If any person sends you an email that contains a virus and can damage your system badly. Many emailed warnings are generated to prevent this type of cybercrime.

 

  • Online gambling:

Online gambling involves the hosting of servers abroad by millions of websites. It is like the main source of money laundering thing.

 

  • Intellectual Property Rights violation:

IPR violations consist of infringement, software piracy, computer source code theft, trademark, patent, and domain name violations.

 

  • Cyber pornography:

It involves a large number of businesses in the contemporary era. There are many countries in which pornography is illegal especially child pornography. Through the internet, there is potential for children to be abused or exploited by cyberspace through access to pornography websites or online sexual solicitation. As children are actively using the internet there is a large chance that they can be exposed to inappropriate sexual material or websites etc. This is a type of crime that can exploit children's minds and their personalities.

 

  • Breaching privacy and confidentiality:

It involves violating or breaching a person's privacy, which refers to the right to determine when, how and what part of his personal data will be shared with others, through unauthorized use or disclosure of his personal information like financial status, etc. Breach of confidentiality includes providing unauthorized access to any person's personal data such as medical records that may cause damage to his business or reputation.

 

  • DOS attack:

It stands for denial of services stack and it means flooding the computer system with more requests than it can handle. It can cause a crash that thereby denying access to services to the authorized person. It is used to disrupt the connection between two computers or systems.

 

  • Data diddling:

This type of cybercrime deals with changing data before or during sending it into a computer. It means that information is changed from the way it should be entered into the computer by a person's illegal access to it by typing something into that sending data or transfer a virus into that data that can change its content or meaning. It also includes changing financial information before processing and restoring original information.

 

Cybercrime attacks:

At the beginning of September 2013, the news of the Syrian Army hacked into the official homepage of the U.S. Marine Corps spread all over the world. This was the reaction of all threats made by the American Government to attack Syria in the response to using Syria's chemical weapons during its civil war.

On September 11, some hackers made their intentions publicly to attack targets in the U.S. originated by name of “Tunisian Hackers Group” which included about 1500 Facebook users involved with the call of carrying out DDOS attacks on several U.S. websites together with the New York Stock Exchange Company. Hackers also provided lists that contain 3000 credit card information.

This type of cybercrime or you may call it cyberwar also happened between India and Pakistan's hackers. The tension between these two countries also spread its way to cyberspace. In August 2013, Pakistani hackers hacked thousands of Indian websites by using naming conventions of Pakistani Cyber Eaglez, PHC team, Pak Cyber Pirates, etc. These hackers also displayed their messages on different pages of hacked Indian websites claiming that this act is for retaliation for cyberattacks against Pakistani websites.

Another well-known attack was done by a Pakistani Hacker group named “H4x0r HuSsy”. The website “Hacker News” announced that this hacking group of Pakistan had attacked 650 Israeli websites and servers and also left the message of “Long Live Palestine – Pakistan – Happy Independence Day From Team Madleets” on every website.

 

The complexity of Cybercrimes in Pakistan:

The problem lies inside the system or investigator somewhere. In Pakistan for investigation, the investigator doesn't have either quite expertise or knowledge to investigate any case properly. In the case of cybercrime, Pakistan needs more expert knowledge on cyberspace so that the investigation process should be completed wisely in less time. As we know technology is evolving every day so does crime techniques. That's why the investigation of cybercrimes will always be difficult due to alteration of data done with the fact of transacting anonymously. However, by adopting the latest and fully equipped techniques and programming implementations the complexity of cybercrimes will be reduced.

 

Cyberlaw against Cybercrime in Pakistan:

In "Electronic Transaction Ordinance 2002" Pakistan's first law was enacted for cybercrimes. It was a step towards the new era till the declaration of PECA (Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act) 2016. Under this ordinance, all types of cybercrimes are not covered.

To investigate cybercrimes, trace criminals, and stop misuse of the internet the Government of Pakistan established a center named "National Response Centre for Cybercrimes (NR3C)" by administrative control of FIA (Federal Investigation Agency). This Hi-Tech unit was established in 2007. This center has the expertise to deal with all types of cybercrimes including penetration testing and training, technical investigation, information security system audits, and digital forensic. It has also conducted many workshops, seminars, and training programs to spread awareness of what is cybercrime and how to deal with it among electronic media, print media, and academia also. NR3C has prosecuted and arrested many cybercriminals. In these prosecuted or arrested criminals there were also included two boys who hacked the website of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

In 2016, PECA was promulgated by the Government of Pakistan in which almost every type of cybercrime was handled and imprisonment and fines were decided against every crime. Through this act, every police station has the authority of dealing with cybercrimes with help of cyber cells. People can submit their complaints on the cyber cell with evidence and then that cyber cell will help to resolve the case.

 

Posted: 16 Dec 2020

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Joined in Dec 2020

Computer Scientist


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HusnainAbbas

I'm a hackerman xD
() (1192 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes ago)

Rida

Husnain I didn't know it xD
() (1186 days, 1 hour, 25 minutes ago)