Introduction
Cyber crime is something that has become part of today’s cyberspace culture and it is a steadily growing threat on the rise. Trusteer” a Boston-based computer security company recently published a report titled “Measuring the Effectiveness of In-the-Wild Phishing Attacks”. Based on Trusteer’s calculations they concluded that the loss per every successfully compromised online banking account is approximately $2,000 which is equivalent to $9.4M per year per each one million customers. These numbers specifically address financial damages caused by the Computer-Based Crime methodology known as “Spear Phishing”.
This cyber crime is a security threat that not only affects businesses, but also everyone that has access to the World Wide Web whether it is via computer, laptop, smart phone or notepad. In order to achieve a successful breach, criminal masterminds often attempt to illegally gain access to the business through multiple targets while combining them with vulnerability tools via web access, e-mail, and even social engineering. In the recent breach to the retail store Target Inc. it was discovered that over 110 million consumers’ credit cards and personal information were exposed to attackers. Several months earlier, programs with malware-laced email phishing codes were sent to Target employees via an HVAC firm which could have been the culprit that infected Target’s point-of-sale systems. According to Fox Business, the attackers used the information gathered and gained access to additional network resources which led to the $200M breach and left the cyber door wide open to future infiltration.
Rest assured that there are many other cyber crime attack methods that can be employed but, this paper will specifically a...
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...com/industries/2014/03/26/banks-sue-security-firm-trustwave-over-target-breach-report-343636749/
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The year 2013 was not one marked for pride for the retail chain, Target. They had one of the largest data breaches known to date that occurred between November 27th and December 15th. Not only was this the one of the largest attacks known to date of this kind, it was also quite eye opening to many who may not have paid any attention to the world of information security. The Target hack resulted in 40 million compromised credit and debit card accounts and that was just the initial known result. After some time, the research revealed that a total of as many as 110 million Target customers were the victims of this gigantic hack. Although computer crimes occur within the United States often, the bigger problem is that criminals from other countries across the oceans are attacking as well.
Identity theft has been a major issue of privacy and fraud. In the data breach analysis from the Identity Theft Resource Center (2013), the number of data breaches from the year 2005 to 2012 increased. In 2012, there had been 49% where the data breach exposed people Social Security Number. The data breach of 2012 has a rate of 27.4% caused by hackers. These breaches were commonly from 36.4% businesses and 34.7% health and medical (Identity Theft Resource Center 2013). The number of identity theft varies from physical possession to digital possession. At least one-fifth of trash cans contains papers listing people’s credit card number and personal information. People that throw away their trash mails contain much personal information that is useful to steal someone's identity (Davis, 2002). Technology becomes a need where people use it daily and as a result it has also become a use for identity theft as well. Throughout the years as technology develops so does identity theft. This paper shows the types, methods and technique used for identity theft, and it also examines possible risk of identity theft from current technology.
Computer crime has been an issue since the beginning of computers. Wherever there is something good, there is always someone who takes advantage of it. This can be seen in cyber crime, which has been on the rise in recent years. According to the Los Angeles Times, the median cost of computer crime to a company per year has risen from $3.8 million dollars in 2010 to $5.9 million. (Rodriguez, 2011) This suggests that computer crime is becoming an even bigger hazard to companies. A recent example of this was the data breach committed against Target in 2013.
About 15 million United States residents have their identities and information used fraudulently each year. Along the use of their identities, they also had a combined financial loss totaling up to almost $50 billion. Major companies such as Apple, Verizon, Target, Sony, and many more have been victims of consumer information hacking. In each of the cases, millions of consumers’ personal information has been breached. In the article “Home Depot 's 56 Million Card Breach Bigger Than Target 's” on September 18, 2014, 56 million cards were breached due to cyber attackers. Before the Home Depot attack, Target had 40 million cards breached. Company’s information is constantly being breached and the consumers’ are the ones who end up having to pay the price. If a company cannot protect the information it takes, then it should not collect the information.
Robert Moore’s Cybercrime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime is an informative text that supplies the reader with basic understandable knowledge of increasing cybercrimes and strategies that law enforcement are taking in order to catch cyber criminals. Moore’s work has a total of thirteen chapters that are full of information that help the reader better understand the different cybercrime threats such as, hacking, identity theft, child pornography, and financial fraud. Moore also goes into detail on different law enforcement tactics that help catch cyber criminals such as, the seizing of digital evidence, executing search warrants for digital evidence, computer forensics, and cybercriminology. Moore’s main goal is to help the reader grasp a better understanding of cybercrime that faces the world today. Through reading this book, I can validly say that Moore’s thorough work, perspectives, and examples helped me better understand high-technology computer crime and investigative strategies as well.
Nowadays, hacking systems which get the data from payment card in retail stores is a popular issue. The use of stolen third-party vendor credentials and RAM scraping malwares were the main reasons for the data breach. A brief introduction of when and how the Home Depot’s data breach took place and how the home depot reacted to the issue and rectified it by
Most people do not possess the same knowledge cybercriminals have about computers. Because of this, it makes them easy targets and they are usually unaware of cyberattacks that could be occurring on their devices. Computers are complex machines that are difficult to understand. Cybercriminals, however, are very knowledgeable about computer technology and can have access to people’s personal information. This can happen on a personal device such as a phone, tablet or computer or
Society has become ever-increasingly dependent upon technology, more specifically, computers to conduct personal and business transactions and communications. Consequently, criminals have targeted these systems to conduct information and cyber warfare, which can include politically motivated attacks and to profit through ill-gotten means. In an article written by Koblentz and Mazanec (2013), cyber warfare is the act of disabling an enemy’s ability to use or obtain information, degrade its ability to make decisions, and to command its military forces. Additionally, information warfare is composed of cyber warfare and related to the protection, disruption, destruction, denial, or manipulation of information in order to gain a benefit through the technologies (Taddeo, 2012). Accordingly, as technology becomes readily available to various entities, the ability to conduct or perform warfare through technological means is multiplying.
Every day millions in some cases billions of dollars are made by businesses from income brought in by online sale of products and services. As businesses continually develop and expand their client base with online products and services so does the desire by criminals to exploit vulnerabilities in their e-commerce setup. The mass worldwide internet usage growth within the last 20 years has been “an approximate 16 million users in 1995 to an estimated 2,937 million in March of 2014” As the importance of e-commerce increases so does the need to protect the technological infrastructure that will carry out online transactions for each business regardless of its size. I will attempt to highlight and review the history of a few cyber crimes to show the progression of the crimes within the last 30-40 years. I also plan to review how the economy and consumers are impacted by cyber crimes. Finally I will make an effort to contribute with information gathering on how to lower the risk of a cyber attack from and individual user to a large scale business.
Today in present, with the improvements in technology and science new concepts are integrated in our lives. Cyber crime is among those concepts that did not exist 15 to 20 years ago. In the old days only conventional crime was discussed, which refers to those traditional, illegal behaviors that most people think of as crime. In today one has to be careful not only against conventional crime but also cybercrime also known as “faceless crime” it’s the latest and the most complicated problem in the new century. Cybercrime consists of all criminal actions against communication devices in a network such as Internet, telephone lines or mobile network. Cyber crime can be observed among people at various age groups as it is easier to commit compared to other types of crime like murder, kidnapping or human trafficking.
In today's society, many aspects of crime committed on a regular basis. Civilians take advantage of people all the time using online resources such as a fraudulent website requiring credit card information to get a free monthly trial. Other examples of cyber crimes are online chatting website, full of predators or websites needing a downloadable program that contains a hacking virus. Sadly, there are many cases of cyber crime all over the internet. The acts of cyber crimes are considered violent acts like any other. Every day citizens are constantly losing money and being victimized due to these fraudulent activities. Cyber crime, including fraud, identity theft, stalking, and hacking, is a growing problem which can be prevented by taking the proper precautions.
The Internet is a connection of computers across the world through a network. Its origin dates back to the 1960s when the U.S Military used it for research, but it became more available to the public from the late 1980s. The World Wide Web was created in 1989 and browsers began appearing in the early 1990s. Over the last 24 years, the Internet has enabled people to shop, play, do research, communicate and conduct business online. It has also become cheaper and faster in performing different tasks. As much as the Internet has done immeasurable good to society, it has also dominated people’s lives and brought with it an array of cybercrimes. According to Nicholas Carr in his book The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way we Think, Read and Remember (Carr, 2010). He debates on whether the Internet has done more harm than good. People use the Internet daily to exchange accurate information and constantly personal data such as credit cards, passwords and Social Security numbers are travelling through the network from one computer to another. With security measures put in place on the Internet, personal information remains confidential. But unfortunately, criminals have adapted to innovations in technology, and today, more people are increasingly becoming victims of cybercrime. The Internet has had profound effects on the public, both positive and negative. In this paper we will examine how access to personal information has led to an increase in online and offline crimes. The essay will particularly focus on ecommerce and hacking.
With the development in technology cyber bullying and cyber crimes became a serious issue. Cyber bullying is terms as the use of electronic means of communication so as to bully an individual and most typically it occurs when one sends messages that are threatening or of an intimidating nature (Florence, 2014). Cyber crime on the other hand refers to crime that involves a network and a computer and in regard to this the computer or network may be the target (Study.com, n.d). Cyber bullying and cyber crimes are well known problem in the world but they aren’t noticed like bullying and crimes but they can be harmful and serious.
Cybercrime refers to all forms of crime conducted through a computer or a mobile device using computer networks. It is thus the use of a computer with the aim of intercepting and manipulating content, disrupting communication, stealing or generally destroying others’ information or hardware through a network. Although cybercrime is a worldwide problem and affects both small and big companies, small companies are affected more from the dangers of cybercrime. The rapid advancement in technology is causing tremendous problems to businesses in terms of more sophisticated cyber-attacks. This project is interesting and beneficial because it enlightens one on the dangers of cybercrime, thus preparing individuals to know how to prevent attacks while online, how to reduce the effects of a cyber-attack and how to prevent future
The advantages of technology and the internet have led more criminals to use cyberspace to commit crimes. The threat of cybercrime is increasing as globalization continues to spread across the world. While the impact of globalization has led to amazing, new discoveries throughout the world, Internet connectivity has also made cybercrime easier. America and the rest of the world have become more reliant on technology and use it in more aspects of their lives, technology-users make themselves more vulnerable to cyber attacks. Globalization and the growing use of computers in the world have given people a motive to learn more about computing and become more knowledgeable as programmers. As these people learn more, there is a risk that they will use their new intelligence to commit cybercrimes.