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COMPUTER SECURITY & CYBER CRIME
By
Capt. S.B. Tyagi, Chief Manager, GAIL (I) Ltd.
To the believers of Hindu mythology it is the trinity (Brahma, Vishnu and
Mahesh) that creates, sustains and destroys the cosmos (Universe). In our
world it is the other trinity - Internet, telecommunication and information
technology that calls the shots.
We are living in a revolution, which is more turbulent than the French
revolution!! Its not the first time that mankind is going through a period
of technological revolution. The sequence has been as given below -
- The potter's wheel.
- Printing Revolution
- Industrial Revolution
- Information Technological Revolution.
Information Technology Revolution; This started in 1980s with
Internet, which routinized the processes and eliminated geography. It not
only redefined the concept of property and space but also brought work place
back to the worker's home. Internet is not to be blamed. It was there for 15
years before our problems arose. What is causing the problems?
- E-Commerce: It means doing business online or selling and buying
products and services through web storefronts. It offers fundamentally new
ways of doing business, rather than mere extension of existing practices.
Internet has made E-commerce feasible, because it offers a medium that is
inexpensive enough to operate and easy enough for people to use.
- E- Governance: It is more than just citizen service and is a
combination of technology and a new style of leadership. It can provide
secure, reliable and controlled interface between the government and
citizens through computer communication network.
Internet was never designed for what it is being used today. It's
metamorphosis is as follows -
- Military project : 1962 ARPA and MIT
- Born : 1971 Arpanet
- Exhibited publicly : 1972
- E-mail : 1972 Ray Tomlinson
- Massive networks : 1980 IBM, Bell.
Internet is special because it made the technology of networking computer
and operating system specific. Robert Kahn took up the challenge to convert
this technology into a general, not specific one.
Parting of ways: In 1983 there was parting between 'Milnet' (for
military use) and Internet (for academic use). Internet was designed for
academic use for free exchange of academic information. This in itself
raised issues of privacy, accuracy, property and accessibility. Internet was
hijacked by technologies like E-commerce and E-governance. The consequences
are that ….
* It has an impact on our every day life
* Computers are replacing mundane human tasks.
* Every thing is becoming dependant on them be it industrial, economic,
communication, medical treatment, confidential data personal, political,
social, economic…it is more of information super-highway.
Internet has helped us to achieve the impossible! High density, compact
storage, imperceptible to the human senses - the VIRTUAL, unbelievable
increase in speed w.r.t distance and w.r.t doing mathematical calculations
and the most important the world wide connectivity and communication, This
all at a price of ……
Internet has helped THE CRIMINAL to achieve the impossible!!!
* By offering new and highly sophisticated tools
for law breaking.
* Potential to commit traditional crimes in non-traditional way.
Crime Par-se does not change. It has to be directed against-person,
property and conscience. Only the tools for committing crime changed.
What does Internet connect?
* Is it Network to Network connection?
* Is it Computer to Network connection?
* Is it Computer to Computer connection?
No! It's program to program connection between two computers!!
As an unregulated medley of corporations, individuals, governments,
educational institutions, and other organizations that have agreed in
principle to use a standard set of communication protocols, the internet is
wide open to exploitation. There are no sheriffs on the information
super-highway waiting to zap potential offenders with a radar gun or search
weapons if someone looks suspicious. By almost all accounts, this lack of "
law enforcement" leaves net users to regulate each other according to the
reigning norms of the moment. With E-commerce comes electronic merchants;
plugged-in educators provide online education and doctors meet with patients
in offices on-line. It should come as no surprise that there are also cyber
criminals committing cyber crimes. Mimicking real life, crimes and criminals
come in all varieties on the Internet.
What is computer crime?
In simple words, the crimes directed at a computer or a computer system or
any illegal action in which computer is a tool or object of a crime.
Nature and impact of computer crime:
A remarkable feature of the crime committed through computer is that it is a
silent crime and can be committed without anyone being aware of it. The
impact of this crime can be noticed by the organization in ways like,
- Financial loss
- Information technology loss.
- Secrecy loss
- Loss of image and credibility.
- Gain for competitors.
- Aggravation of quality and service.
Cyber Crimes:
Any crime that involves computers and networks, including crimes that do not
rely heavily on computers.
It can also be said, "Once any two computers can talk… crimes can be
committed. So Cyber crime is nothing but conventional crime committed using
a computer.
Transformation of computer crimes to Cyber crimes has been a very long but
extremely fast journey. We can say Computers fascinate while the information
technology terrorizes.
What has caused the spurt of criminal activities? Computers? Yes is the
Answer!
Tools to commit a Cyber Crime: Essentially we establish
program-to-program connection with another computer. The program may be as
follows:
- Imagine you call a friend for dinner and he brings with him a bag full
of termites. Termites play havoc in the house. Such a program is called
Virus. Just like termite that can reproduce and can enter wood, virus also
has two characters - they can replicate, should become part of another
program, then only they can create havoc. A Virus can be defined as " A
program, which reproduces its own code by attacking itself to other
programs in such a way that the virus code is executed when the infected
program is executed. We should also say that the virus must do this
without the permission or knowledge of the user.
- Imagine the friend gave you a gift, has a hidden camera. This camera
transmits him at regular intervals details of activities in your house.
Such a program is called a Trojan horse. Just like a camera, which cannot
replicate and can function alone, the Trojan horse cannot replicate i.e.
cannot infect other files but can stand alone as an independent program.
- Imagine the friend gave you a pair of rabbits. They reproduce very
fast. A pair can produce 1000 off springs in a year. Finally you will find
there is no space in your house to move around --- do your daily work.
Such a program is called a Worm. This worm can replicate itself; can stand
alone as an independent file. It makes full running duplicates of itself.
It consumes space on your hard disk thus making your computer to crash
finally. It cannot infect new files.
- Imagine your friend gifted you with a doll with a hidden bomb. It
explodes after two months. Such a program is called a Logic bomb. These
logic bombs perform destructive acts based on trigger events.
- Imagine there is a festival of minority community. They visit a deity.
The whole population of the town queues up, even before the genuine
worshippers turn up. The genuine worshippers are denied access in such
scene. Such a situation in e-box or attack on it by useless emails is
called Denial of Service. It is flooding the receiver by sending millions
of requests to a computer continuously thus denying access to genuine
users.
- Salami technique implies trimming off small amounts of money from many
sources and diverting these into one's own or an accomplice's account.
- Data Diddling: It is the act to alter the data with a mala fide
intention to cause undue advantage to a specific party is termed as data
diddling.
- Masquerading: It means using someone else's identity to gain access to
a computer.
- Scavenging Memory: It is the method of obtaining information from
residual data left in a computer or on computer tapes and disks after
processing.
- IP Spoofing: It means changing IP addresses on packets you send to
request for access and making the server believe that the request is
coming from a friendly client.
- IP Sniffing: Imagine the enemy is cleverer. He plants a servant in
your house. He overhears and observes everything and passes on to him. He
comes for a brief period and does what he wants in that small period. The
technique of capturing all conversations in networks and mailing them to
the planter is called IP Sniffing. IP sniffer can collect all passwords
and transmit.
- Defacing is the technique, which permits programs to attach themselves
over other, programs esp. web pages. It does not change the original web
page but places a page over that page.
- Electronic Eavesdropping: Tapping, without authorization, into
communication lines over which digitized computer data and messages are
being sent is electronic eavesdropping. Here someone picks up the sound or
the electromagnetic radiations and then decrypts it.
- When someone makes you come out with your password in a social
gathering, it is called social engineering.
How is Passwords Stolen?
- We write it and throw it.
- Someone picks it up. This technique is called Trashing.
- Scavenging for data in materials that have been thrown away.
- Print outs handwritten documents.
- Discarded disks, tapes.
- Deleted documents in reality do not get deleted - they can be
recovered.
15. Trapdoors and Backdoors: Trapdoors are
weaknesses in security programs intentionally created and are normally
inserted during software development. These doors are supposed to be removed
once the software is completed. Unintentional access to software code is
referred to as a Backdoor.
What is a hacker and what does he do?
Hacker is a person with a mastery of computers who could push programs
beyond what they were designed to do. These hackers exploit these trapdoors
to gain entry. They exploit weaknesses of the security system i.e. dictates
his term! ! ! ---- That is:
CYBER TERRORISM OR CYBER EXTORTION
It can be defined as the use of computing resources to intimidate others. An
example of cyber terrorism could be hacking into a hospital computer system
and changing someone's medicine prescription to a lethal dosage as an act of
revenge.
Where does the threat lie?
i. Outsiders
ii. Disgruntled employees
iii. Natural calamities
iv. Dishonest employees
v. Employees' errors, acts, omissions.
Classification of Cyber Crimes:
i. Hardware as contraband of crime.
ii. Stolen computer system.
iii. Pirated software.
iv. Hacking programs.
v. CD writer to copy blue movies-Pornography
vi. Hardware as evidence.
vii. Hardware designed exclusively to commit crimes.
viii. Information as evidence.
Prevention of Computer Crime:
Computer crimes are an increasing problem in our society. It is to be looked
into by not only computing professionals, but also anyone who uses a
computer network of any kind. Prevention of computer crime can be classified
into:
i. Technological Aspect: Hardware related
prevention, software related prevention and operation related prevention.
Deciding upon the proper hardware matching and suitability to the operations
of the organization and also while designing, developing and implementing
the application software.
ii. Managerial Aspect: The line managers of the computer should
devise ways and means to prevent/deter computer crimes.
Encryption and firewall are also methods of protecting/preventing against
computer crimes. In India, the IT law 2000 is the right step towards
checking the menace of computer related crimes. The first police station to
deal with tackling of computer crimes has become functional at Bangalore in
Karnataka state.
The recent terrorist attacks on the US; Indian Parliament has stunned the
world. It has been possible with advanced technology and information
detection systems. The biggest threat today is the INFORMATION WARFARE.
The weapons in this war are simple - a personal computer, a keyboard, a
mouse and an Internet connection. With these weapons, an adversary can play
havoc with a country's economy, business and state secrets, including
defense. Strategically, info war is a conflict in which electronic
information is a vital asset and a target for destruction.
Information warfare is defined as the offensive and defensive use of
information and information systems to deny, exploit, corrupt or destroy an
adversary's information, information based processes and computer based
network while protecting one's own. It generally involves illegal copying,
distortion, manipulation and scare-mongering using information.
There are three basic elements of an info war attack:
Low cost of attacker, thereafter of war being redefined and highly evolved
propaganda. The info war can be targeted at three levels: a nation, a
corporate and an individual.
Industrial Espionage: Corporations, like governments, love to spy on
the enemy. Net worked systems provide new opportunities for this, as
hackers-for-hire retrieve information about product development and
marketing strategies, rarely leaving behind any evidence of the theft. Not
only is tracing the criminal labor intensive, convictions are hard to obtain
when laws are not written with electronic theft in mind.
Thus, for surviving under the present situation it is vital to constantly
update IT Security Systems, and at the broadest level, countries like ours
need to understand and recognize Cyber crime- Info war and lessons from
countries that have already integrated info war capabilities need to be
internalized. Scenario and war-games involving info war should also be
played out. |
