A Study on the Types of
Cyber Crimes and Prevention
Methods

What is Cyber Crime?
A generalized definition of cyber crime may be “unlawful acts
wherein the computer is either a tool or target or both”
The computer may be used as a tool in the following kinds of
activity- financial crimes, sale of illegal articles, pornography,
online gambling, intellectual property crime, e-mail spoofing,
forgery, cyber defamation, cyber stalking
The computer may however be target for unlawful acts in the
following cases- unauthorized access to computer/ computer
system/ computer networks, theft of information contained in
the electronic form, e-mail bombing, Trojan attacks, internet
time thefts, theft of computer system, physically damaging the
computer system

Computer crimes encompass a broad range of potentially
illegal activities. Generally, however, it may be divided into
one of two types of categories
(1) Crimes that target computer networks or devices directly;
Examples -
 Malware and malicious code, Denial-of-service attacks and
Computing viruses
(2) Crimes facilitated by computer networks or devices, the
primary target of which is independent of the computer
network or device
Examples -
 Cyber stalking, Fraud and identity theft, Phishing scams and
Information warfare

The Tenth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of
Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (Vienna, 10-17 April
2000) categorized five offenses as cyber-crime: unauthorized
access, damage to computer data or programs, sabotage to
hinder the functioning of a computer system or network,
unauthorized interception of data to from and within a system
or network, and computer espionage.

Classification of Cyber Crimes
The subject of cyber crime may be broadly classified under the
following three groups. They are:
1. Against individuals
 Their person
 Their property of an individual.
2. Against an organization
 Government
 Firm, Company, Group of Individuals
3. Against the society at large

Against Individuals:
 Harassment via e-mails
 Cyber-stalking
 Dissemination of obscene material
 Defamation
 Unauthorized control/access over computer system
 Indecent exposure
 Email spoofing
 Cheating & Fraud

Against Individual Property:
 Computer vandalism
 Transmitting virus
 Netrespass
 Unauthorized control/access over computer system
 Intellectual Property crimes
 Internet time thefts
Against an Organization:
 Unauthorized control/access over computer system
 Possession of unauthorized information
 Cyber terrorism against the government organization
 Distribution of pirated software

Against the Society at large: -
 Pornography (basically child pornography)
 Polluting the youth through indecent exposure
 Trafficking
 Financial crimes
 Sale of illegal articles
 Online gambling
 Forgery

SPAM:
 Spam, or the unsolicited sending of bulk email for commercial
purposes, is unlawful to varying degrees.
FRAUD:
 Computer fraud is any dishonest misrepresentation of fact
intended to let another to do or refrain from doing something
which causes loss.
 Forms of fraud may be facilitated using computer systems,
including bank fraud, identity theft, extortion, and theft of
classified information. A variety of Internet scams target
consumers direct.

 Valid credit card numbers can be intercepted electronically, as
well as physically; the digital information stored on a card can
be counterfeited.
 Computer networks may also be used in furtherance of
extortion.
PHISHING:
 It is technique of pulling out confidential information from the
bank/financial institutional account holders by deceptive
means.
SALAMI ATTACK:
 In such crime criminal makes insignificant changes in such a
manner that such changes would go unnoticed.

 Criminal makes such program that deducts small amount like
Rs. 2.50 per month from the account of all the customer of the
Bank and deposit the same in his account.
 In this case no account holder will approach the bank for such
small amount but criminal gains huge amount
OBSCENE OR OFFENSIVE CONTENT: -
 Content considered by some to be objectionable exists in
abundance in cyberspace.
 This includes, among much else, sexually explicit materials,
racist propaganda, and instructions for the fabrication of
incendiary and explosive devices.
 In some instances these communications may be illegal.

 One area of Internet pornography that has been the target of the
strongest efforts at curtailment is child pornography
 According to Crime Research, child pornography involves
distributing, trafficking, dissemination and posting any child-
related obscene material
 When executing this cyber crime, offenders will post obscene
photos and videos of children and underage teenagers. They
will provide these for free or charge a subscription fee to those
who sign up for their websites

HARASSMENT:
 It involves violating the privacy of another person by using the
Internet
 Whereas content may be offensive in a non-specific way,
harassment directs obscenities and derogatory comments at
specific individuals focusing for example on gender, race,
religion, nationality, sexual orientation
 This often occurs in chat rooms, through newsgroups, and by
sending hate e-mail to interested parties. Any comment that
may be found derogatory or offensive is considered harassment

 Cyber stalking involves following a person's movements across
the Internet by posting messages (sometimes threatening) on
the bulletin boards frequented by the victim, entering the chat-
rooms frequented by the victim, constantly bombarding the
victim with emails etc.
 Defamation is an act of imputing any person with intent to
lower the person in the estimation of the right-thinking
members of society generally or to cause him to be shunned or
avoided or to expose him to hatred, contempt or ridicule.

TRAFFICKING:
 Trafficking may assume different forms. It may be trafficking
in drugs, human beings, arms, weapons etc.
 Drug traffickers are increasingly taking advantage of the
Internet to sell their illegal substances through encrypted e-
mail and other Internet Technology.
 Some drug traffickers arrange deals at internet cafes, use
courier Web sites to track illegal packages of pills, and swap
recipes for amphetamines in restricted-access chat rooms.

PIRACY:
 Piracy is the act of copying copyrighted material
 It involves the use of the Internet to market or distribute
creative works protected by copyright
 This has caused considerable concern to owners of copyrighted
material. Each year, it has been estimated that losses of
between US$15 and US$17 billion are sustained by industry by
reason of copyright infringement
HACKING:
 It is hacking websites
 This may be done for personal notoriety, the challenge, or a
political message just as with traditional defacement of
property. It can also include hacking into computer networks

VIRUSES:
 Viruses are sent to other people's computers to gain access to
their personal information and to eventually destroy their hard
drive.
 To combat viruses, companies and individuals can purchase
anti-virus software for their computer, avoid downloading
anything unless they know the source is completely safe and
not open emails from anyone they do not know

Conclusion:
The above forms of computer-related crime are
not necessarily mutually exclusive, and need not
occur in isolation
 Computer-related crime may be compound in
nature, combining two or more of the generic
forms outlined above

Child Pornography
 The law enforcement agencies are trying to combat this
cybercrime by working undercover online
Viruses
 To combat viruses, companies and individuals can purchase
anti-virus software for their computer, avoid downloading
anything unless they know the source is completely safe and
not open emails from anyone they do not know.
Cyber Harassment
 To combat cyber harassment, individuals should report all
suspected cases to their local law enforcement agency
 Law enforcement agencies will take the proper measures to
identify the harasser and may choose to prosecute them

Terrorism
 Combat this type of cyber crime, law enforcement agencies,
particularly the FBI, have special units. The Cyber Division
that deals specifically with cyber terrorism
Cracking
 Cracking can be difficult to solve, but any suspected cracking
crimes should be discussed with a local law enforcement
agency. If they do not have the man power to pursue the
offender, the FBI may decide to pursue it

Prevention Methods
Frequent password changing
 With the advent of multi-user systems, security has become
dependent on passwords. Thus one should always keep
passwords to sensitive data secure. Changing them frequently,
and keeping them sufficiently complex in the first place can do
this.
Safe surfing
 This is a practice, which should be followed by all users on a
network. Safe surfing involves keeping ones e-mail address
private, not chatting on open systems, which do not have
adequate protection methods, visiting secure sites.

 Accepting data from only known users, downloading carefully,
and then from known sites also minimizes risk
Frequent virus checks
 One should frequently check ones computer for viruses and
worms. Also any external media such as floppy disks and CD
ROMS should always be virus checked before running
Email filters
 These are programs, which monitor the inflow of mails to the
inbox and delete automatically any suspicious or useless mails
thus reducing the chances of being bombed or spoofed

To Conclude,
A netizen should keep in mind the following things
 To prevent cyber stalking avoid disclosing any information
pertaining to oneself. This is as good as disclosing your
identity to strangers in public place
 Always avoid sending any photograph online particularly to
strangers and chat friends as there have been incidents of
misuse of the photographs
 Always use latest and up date anti virus software to guard
against virus attacks
 Always keep back up volumes so that one may not suffer data
loss in case of virus contamination

 Never send your credit card number to any site that is not
secured, to guard against frauds.
 Always keep a watch on the sites that your children are
accessing to prevent any kind of harassment or depravation in
children.
 It is better to use a security programme that gives control over
the cookies and send information back to the site as leaving the
cookies unguarded might prove fatal.
 Web site owners should watch traffic and check any
irregularity on the site. Putting host-based intrusion detection
devices on servers may do this
 Use of firewalls may be beneficial

 And finally, Web servers running public sites must be
physically separate protected from internal corporate network