A cybercrime is a
crime
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...
that involves a
computer or a
computer network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
.
[Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing.] The computer may have been used in committing the crime, or it may be the target.
Cybercrime may harm someone's security or finances.
There are many
privacy concerns surrounding cybercrime when confidential information is intercepted or disclosed, lawfully or otherwise. Internationally, both governmental and non-state actors engage in cybercrimes, including
espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
,
financial theft, and other cross-border crimes. Cybercrimes crossing international borders and involving the actions of at least one nation-state are sometimes referred to as
cyberwarfare.
Warren Buffett
Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net ...
describes cybercrime as the "number one problem with mankind" and said that cybercrime "poses real risks to humanity."
A 2014 report sponsored by
McAfee
McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company head ...
estimated that cybercrime resulted in $445 billion in annual damage to the global economy. Approximately $1.5 billion was lost in 2012 to online credit and debit card fraud in the US. In 2018, a study by the
Center for Strategic and International Studies
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. CSIS was founded as the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University in 1962. The center conducts polic ...
(CSIS), in partnership with McAfee, concluded that nearly 1% of global GDP, close to $600 billion, is lost to cybercrime each year. The
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
2020 Global Risk Report confirmed that organized cybercrimes bodies are joining forces to perpetrate criminal activities online, while estimating the likelihood of their detection and prosecution to be less than 1% in the US.
Classifications
Computer crime encompasses a broad range of activities, including
computer fraud
Computer fraud is a cybercrime and the act of using a computer to take or alter electronic data, or to gain unlawful use of a computer or system. In the United States, computer fraud is specifically proscribed by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, ...
,
financial crime
Financial crime is crime committed against property, involving the unlawful conversion of the ownership of property (belonging to one person) to one's own personal use and benefit. Financial crimes may involve fraud ( cheque fraud, credit card fra ...
s, scams,
cybersex trafficking
Cybersex trafficking, live streaming sexual abuse, webcam sex tourism/abuse or ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies)-facilitated sexual exploitation is a cybercrime involving sex trafficking and the live streaming of coerced sexual a ...
, and
ad fraud
Ad fraud (also referred to as ''Click Fraud or PPC Fraud)'' is concerned with the practice of fraudulently representing online advertisement impressions, clicks, conversion or data events in order to generate revenue. Ad-frauds are particularly po ...
.
Computer fraud
Computer fraud
Computer fraud is a cybercrime and the act of using a computer to take or alter electronic data, or to gain unlawful use of a computer or system. In the United States, computer fraud is specifically proscribed by the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, ...
is the act of using a computer to take or alter electronic data, or to gain unlawful use of a computer or system. If computer fraud involves the use of the Internet, it can be considered
Internet fraud
Internet fraud is a type of cybercrime fraud or deception which makes use of the Internet and could involve hiding of information or providing incorrect information for the purpose of tricking victims out of money, property, and inheritance. Int ...
. The legal definition of computer fraud varies by jurisdiction, but typically involves accessing a computer without permission or authorisation.
Forms of computer fraud include
hacking into computers to alter information, distributing malicious code such as
computer worms or
viruses
A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea.
Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's ...
, installing
malware or
spyware
Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their priva ...
to steal data,
phishing
Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwa ...
, and
advance-fee scams.
Other forms of fraud may be facilitated using computer systems, including
bank fraud,
carding,
identity theft
Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term ''identity theft'' was c ...
,
extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...
, and
theft of classified information. These types of crimes often result in the loss of private or monetary information.
Cyberterrorism
Cyberterrorism, in general, can be defined as an act of
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
committed through the use of cyberspace or computer resources. Acts of deliberate, large-scale disruption of
computer network
A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...
s, especially of personal computers attached to the Internet, by means such as
computer viruses,
computer worms,
phishing
Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwa ...
,
malicious software
Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, ...
, hardware methods, or programming scripts can all be forms of cyberterrorism.
Government officials and
information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of Data (computing), data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information te ...
security specialists have documented a significant increase in Internet problems and server scams since early 2001. Within the United States, there is a growing concern among government agencies such as the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI) and the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) that such intrusions are part of an organized effort by
cyberterrorist
Cyberterrorism is the use of the Internet to conduct violent acts that result in, or threaten, the loss of life or significant bodily harm, in order to achieve political or ideological gains through threat or intimidation. Acts of deliberate, la ...
foreign intelligence services or other groups to map potential security holes in critical systems.
Cyberextortion
Cyberextortion is a type of
extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...
that occurs when a website, e-mail server, or computer system is subjected to or threatened with attacks by malicious hackers, such as
denial-of-service attack
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conn ...
s. Cyberextortionists demand money in return for promising to stop the attacks and to offer "protection". According to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
, cybercrime extortionists are increasingly attacking corporate websites and networks, crippling their ability to operate, and demanding payments to restore their service. More than 20 cases are reported each month to the FBI and many go unreported in order to keep the victim's name out of the public domain. Perpetrators typically use a
distributed denial-of-service attack
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
. However, other cyberextortion techniques exist, such as
doxing
Doxing or doxxing is the act of publicly providing personally identifiable information about an individual or organization, usually via the internet. Historically, the term has been used interchangeably to refer to both the aggregation of this in ...
, extortion, and
bug poaching.
An example of cyberextortion was
the attack on Sony Pictures of 2014.
Ransomware
Ransomware is a type of malware used in cyberextortion to restrict access to files, sometimes threatening permanent data erasure unless a ransom is paid. The Kaspersky Lab 2016 Security Bulletin report estimated that a business falls victim to ransomware every 40 minutes, and predicted that number would decrease to 11 minutes by 2021. With ransomware remaining one of the fastest-growing cybercrimes in the world, global ransomware damage is predicted to cost up to $20 billion in 2021.
Cybersex trafficking
Cybersex trafficking is the transportation of victims and then the
live streaming of coerced sexual acts or
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...
on webcam.
Victims are abducted, threatened, or deceived and transferred to "cybersex dens". The dens can be in any location where the cybersex traffickers have a computer, tablet, or phone with an
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
connection.
Perpetrators use
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
networks,
videoconferences
Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...
, dating pages, online chat rooms, apps,
dark web sites,
and other platforms. They use
online payment systems and
cryptocurrencies to hide their identities. Millions of reports of its occurrence are sent to authorities annually. New legislation and police procedures are needed to combat this type of cybercrime.
There are an estimated 6.3 million people who are victims of cybersex trafficking, according to a recent report by the International Labour Organization and IOM. This number includes about 1.7 million children who are victims. An example of cybersex trafficking is the 2018–2020
Nth room case in
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
.
Cyberwarfare
The U.S.
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philipp ...
notes that cyberspace has emerged as a national-level concern through several recent events of geostrategic significance, including the attack on
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
's infrastructure in 2007, allegedly by Russian hackers. In August 2008, Russia again allegedly conducted cyberattacks, this time in a coordinated and synchronized kinetic and non-kinetic campaign against the country of
Georgia
Georgia most commonly refers to:
* Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States
Georgia may also refer to:
Places
Historical states and entities
* Related to the ...
. Fearing that such attacks may become the norm in future warfare among nation-states, the military commanders will adapt the concept of cyberspace operations impact in the future.
Computer as a target
These crimes are committed by a selected group of criminals. Unlike crimes using the computer as a tool, these crimes require the technical knowledge of the perpetrators. As such, as technology evolves, so too does the nature of the crime. These crimes are relatively new, having been in existence for only as long as computers have—which explains how unprepared society and the world, in general, are towards combating these crimes. There are numerous crimes of this nature committed daily on the internet. They are seldom committed by loners, instead usually involving large syndicate groups.
Crimes that primarily target computer networks include:
*
Computer viruses
*
Denial-of-service attacks
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
*
Malware (malicious code)
Computer as a tool
When the individual is the main target of cybercrime, the computer can be considered as the tool rather than the target. These crimes generally involve less technical expertise. Human weaknesses are generally exploited. The damage dealt is largely
psychological and intangible, making legal action against the variants more difficult. These are the crimes which have existed for centuries in the offline world.
Scams
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have de ...
, theft, and the like existed before the development of computers and the internet. The same criminal has simply been given a tool which increases their potential pool of victims and makes them all the harder to trace and apprehend.
Crimes that use computer networks or devices to advance other ends include:
*
Fraud and
identity theft
Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term ''identity theft'' was c ...
(although this increasingly uses malware, hacking or phishing, making it an example of both "computer as target" and "computer as tool" crime)
*
Information warfare
Information warfare (IW) (as different from cyber warfare that attacks computers, software, and command control systems) is a concept involving the battlespace use and management of information and communication technology (ICT) in pursuit of a ...
*
Phishing scams
*
Spam
*Propagation of illegal obscene or
offensive content
Internet safety or online safety or cyber safety and E-Safety is trying to be safe on the internet and is the act of maximizing a user's awareness of personal safety and security risks to private information and property associated with using the i ...
, including harassment and threats
The unsolicited sending of bulk
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
for commercial purposes (
spam) is unlawful
in some jurisdictions.
Phishing
Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent (e.g., spoofed, fake, or otherwise deceptive) message designed to trick a person into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious softwa ...
is mostly propagated via email. Phishing emails may contain links to other websites that are affected by malware. Or, they may contain links to fake
online banking
Online banking, also known as internet banking, web banking or home banking, is an electronic payment system that enables customers of a bank or other financial institution to conduct a range of financial transactions through the financial ins ...
or other websites used to steal private account information.
Obscene or offensive content
The content of websites and other electronic communications may be distasteful,
obscene
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be us ...
, or offensive for a variety of reasons. In some instances, these communications may be illegal.
The extent to which these communications are unlawful varies greatly between countries, and even within nations. It is a sensitive area in which the courts can become involved in arbitrating between groups with strong beliefs.
One area of
Internet pornography that has been the target of the strongest efforts at curtailment is
child pornography
Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ...
, which is illegal in most jurisdictions in the world.
Ad-fraud
Ad-frauds are particularly popular among cybercriminals, as such frauds are less likely to be prosecuted and are particularly lucrative cybercrimes. Jean-Loup Richet, Professor at the
Sorbonne Business School
The Institut d'administration des entreprises de Paris (also known as IAE Paris or Sorbonne Business School) is a public business school, part of University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne in Paris, France. It is also a component of the IAE's net ...
, classified the large variety of ad-fraud observed in cybercriminal communities into three categories: (1) identity fraud; (2) attribution fraud; and (3) ad-fraud services.
Identity fraud
Identity fraud is the use by one person of another person's personal information, without authorization, to commit a crime or to deceive or defraud that other person or a third person. Most identity fraud is committed in the context of financial ad ...
aims to impersonate real users and inflate audience numbers. Several ad-fraud techniques relate to this category and include traffic from bots (coming from a hosting company or a data center, or from compromised devices);
cookie stuffing
On the World Wide Web, cookie stuffing (also cookie dropping) is an affiliate marketing technique in which, as a result of visiting a website, a user receives a third-party cookie from a website unrelated to that visited by the user, usually wit ...
; falsifying user characteristics, such as location and browser type; fake social traffic (misleading users on social networks into visiting the advertised website); and the creation of fake social signals to make a bot look more legitimate, for instance by opening a Twitter or Facebook account.
Attribution fraud aims to impersonate real users' behaviors (clicks, activities, conversations, etc.). Multiple ad-fraud techniques belong to this category: hijacked devices and the use of infected users (through malware) as part of a botnet to participate in ad fraud campaigns; click farms (companies where low-wage employees are paid to click or engage in conversations and affiliates' offers); incentivized browsing; video placement abuse (delivered in display banner slots); hidden ads (that will never be viewed by real users); domain spoofing (ads served on a website other than the advertised real-time bidding website); and clickjacking (user is forced to click on the ad).
Ad fraud
Ad fraud (also referred to as ''Click Fraud or PPC Fraud)'' is concerned with the practice of fraudulently representing online advertisement impressions, clicks, conversion or data events in order to generate revenue. Ad-frauds are particularly po ...
services are related to all online infrastructure and hosting services that might be needed to undertake identity or attribution fraud. Services can involve the creation of spam websites (fake networks of websites created to provide artificial backlinks); link building services; hosting services; creation of fake and scam pages impersonating a famous brand and used as part of an ad fraud campaign.
A successful ad-fraud campaign involves a sophisticated combination of these three types of ad-fraud—sending fake traffic through bots using fake social accounts and falsified cookies; bots will click on the ads available on a scam page that is faking a famous brand.
Online harassment
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
Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to:
* Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species
* Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...
, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation.
There are instances where committing a crime using a computer can lead to an enhanced sentence. For example, in the case of ''
United States v. Neil Scott Kramer
''United States v. Neil Scott Kramer'', 631 F.3d 900 (8th Cir. 2011), is a court case where a cellphone was used to coerce a minor into engaging in sex with an adult. Central to the case was whether a cellphone constituted a computer device. Unde ...
'', the defendant was given an enhanced sentence according to the
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual
The United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines are rules published by the U.S. Sentencing Commission that set out a uniform policy for Sentence (law), sentencing individuals and organizations convicted of Classes of offenses under United States f ...
§2G1.3(b)(3) for his use of a
cell phone to "persuade, induce, entice, coerce, or facilitate the travel of, the minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct." Kramer appealed the sentence on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to convict him under this statute because his charge included persuading through a computer device and his cellular phone technically is not a computer. Although Kramer tried to argue this point, the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual states that the term "computer" means "an electronic, magnetic, optical,
electrochemical
Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an outc ...
, or other high-speed data processing device performing logical, arithmetic, or storage functions, and includes any data storage facility or communications facility directly related to or operating in conjunction with such device."
In the United States, over 41 states have passed laws and regulations that regard extreme online harassment as a criminal act. These acts can be punished on a federal scale, such as US Code 18 Section 2261A, which states that using computers to threaten or harass can lead to a sentence of up to 20 years, depending on the action taken.
Several countries outside of the United States have also created laws to combat online harassment. In China, a country that supports over 20 percent of the world's internet users, the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council passed a strict law against the bullying of young people through a bill in response to the
Human Flesh Search Engine
Human flesh search engine () is a Chinese term for the phenomenon of distributed researching using Internet media such as blogs and forums. Internet media, namely dedicated websites and Internet forums, are in fact platforms that enable the broa ...
. The United Kingdom passed the
Malicious Communications Act, among other acts from 1997 to 2013, which stated that sending messages or letters electronically that the government deemed "indecent or grossly offensive" and/or language intended to cause "distress and anxiety" can lead to a prison sentence of six months and a potentially large fine. Australia, while not directly addressing the issue of harassment, has grouped the majority of online harassment under the Criminal Code Act of 1995. Using telecommunication to send threats or harass and cause offense was a direct violation of this act.
Although
freedom of speech is protected by law in most democratic societies (in the US this is done by the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
), it does not include all types of speech. In fact, spoken or written "true threat" speech or text is criminalized because of "intent to harm or intimidate". That also applies to online or network-related threats in written text or speech.
Cyberbullying has increased drastically with the growing popularity of online social networking. As of January 2020, 44% of adult internet users in the United States have "personally experienced online harassment". Children who experience online harassment deal with negative and sometimes life-threatening side effects. In 2021, reports displayed 41% of children developing social anxiety, 37% of children developing depression, and 26% of children having suicidal thoughts.
The
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...
was named in a spying scandal where the Gulf nation along with other repressive governments purchased
NSO Group
NSO Group Technologies (NSO standing for Niv, Shalev and Omri, the names of the company's founders) is an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm primarily known for its proprietary spyware Pegasus, which is capable of remote zero-click surveillance ...
's mobile spyware
Pegasus for mass surveillance. Prominent activists and journalists were targeted as part of the campaign, including
Ahmed Mansoor,
Princess Latifa,
Princess Haya
Princess Haya bint Hussein ( ar, الأميرة هيا بنت الحسين; born 3 May 1974) is the daughter of King Hussein of Jordan and his third wife Queen Alia, and the half-sister of King Abdullah II.
She is a graduate of the University ...
, and more.
Ghada Oueiss Ghada ( ar, غــادة) is a feminine given name of Arabic origin, is used mostly in Arabic speaking countries, but also in a few other countries and languages of the world. In Arabic, it refers to women who are graceful and active, tender and enc ...
was one of the many high-profile female journalists and activists who became the target of online harassment. Oueiss filed a lawsuit against UAE ruler
Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan ( ar, مُحَمّد بِن زَايد آل نَهيَان, Moḥamed bin Zāyed Āl Nahyān; born 11 March 1961), colloquially known by his initials as MBZ, is the third president of the United Arab Emirates ...
along with other defendants, accusing them of sharing her photos online. The defendants, including the UAE ruler, filed motions to dismiss the case of the hack-and-leak attack.
Drug trafficking
Darknet markets are used to buy and sell
recreational drugs
Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasur ...
online. Some
drug trafficker
The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs throug ...
s use
encrypted
In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...
messaging tools to communicate with drug mules or potential customers. The
dark web site
Silk Road was the first major online marketplace for drugs, starting operation in 2011. It was permanently shut down in 2014 by the FBI and Europol. After Silk Road 2.0 went down, Silk Road 3 Reloaded emerged. However, it was just an older marketplace named
Diabolus Market, that used the name for more exposure from the brand's previous success.
Darknet markets have had a rise in traffic in recent years for many reasons, one of the biggest contributors being the anonymity offered in purchases, and often a seller-review system. There are many ways in which darknet markets can financially drain individuals. Vendors and customers alike go to great lengths to keep their identities a secret while online. Commonly used tools are
virtual private networks
A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...
,
Tails, and the
Tor Browser
Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...
to help hide their
online presence. Darknet markets entice customers by making them feel comfortable. People can easily gain access to a Tor browser with
DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo (DDG) is an internet search engine that emphasizes protecting searchers' privacy and avoiding the filter bubble of personalized search results. DuckDuckGo does not show search results from content farms. It uses various APIs o ...
browser that allows a user to explore much deeper than other browsers such as
Google Chrome. However, actually gaining access to an illicit market is not as simple as typing it in on a search engine like one would with Google. Darknet markets have special links that change frequently, ending in .onion as opposed to the typical .com, .net, and .org domain extensions. To add to privacy, the most prevalent currency on these markets is Bitcoin. Bitcoin allows transactions to be anonymous, with the only information available to the public being the record that a transaction occurred between two parties.
One of the biggest issues the users who use marketplaces face is when vendors or the market itself are exit scamming. This is when usually a vendor with a high rating will act as if they are still selling on the market and have users pay for products they will not receive. The vendor will then close off their account after receiving money from multiple buyers and never send what they purchased. The vendors all being involved in illegal activities have a low chance of not exit scamming when they no longer want to be a vendor. In 2019, an entire market known as Wall Street Market had allegedly exit scammed, stealing 30 million dollars from the vendors' and buyers' wallets in bitcoin.
Federal agents have cracked down on these markets. In July 2017, federal agents seized one of the biggest markets, commonly called
Alphabay
AlphaBay is a darknet market operating both as an onion service on the Tor network and as an I2P node on I2P. After it was shut down in July 2017 following law enforcement action in the United States, Canada, and Thailand as part of Operation ...
, which later re-opened in August 2021 under the control of DeSnake, one of the original administrators.
Commonly, investigators will pose as a buyer and order products from darknet vendors in the hopes that vendors leave a trail the investigators can follow. One investigation had an investigator pose as a firearms seller and for six months people purchased from them and provided home addresses.
The investigators were able to make over a dozen arrests during this six-month investigation.
Another one of law enforcement's biggest crackdowns is on vendors selling
fentanyl
Fentanyl, also spelled fentanil, is a very potent synthetic opioid used as a pain medication. Together with other drugs, fentanyl is used for anesthesia. It is also used illicitly as a recreational drug, sometimes mixed with heroin, cocain ...
and
opiates
An opiate, in classical pharmacology, is a substance derived from opium. In more modern usage, the term ''opioid'' is used to designate all substances, both natural and synthetic, that bind to opioid receptors in the brain (including antagonist ...
. With thousands of people dying each year due to drug overdose, investigators have made it a priority. Many vendors do not realize the extra criminal charges that go along with selling drugs online. Commonly they get charged with money laundering and charges for when the drugs are shipped in the mail on top of being a drug distributor. In 2019, a vendor was sentenced to 10 years in prison after selling cocaine and methamphetamine under the name JetSetLife. Although many investigators spend large amounts of time tracking down people, in 2018, only 65 suspects who bought and sold illegal goods on some of the biggest markets were identified. This is compared to the thousands of transactions taking place daily on these markets.
Notable incidents
* One of the highest-profile banking computer crimes occurred over a course of three years beginning in 1970. The chief teller at the Park Avenue branch of New York's
Union Dime Savings Bank embezzled over $1.5 million from hundreds of accounts.
* A hacking group called MOD (Masters of Deception) allegedly stole passwords and technical data from
Pacific Bell
The Pacific Bell Telephone Company (Pacific Bell or Pac Bell) is a telephone company that provides telephone service in California. The company is owned by AT&T through AT&T Teleholdings, and, though separate, is now marketed as “AT&T”. The ...
,
Nynex
NYNEX Corporation was an American telephone company that served five states of New England (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont) as well as most of the state of New York from January 1, 1984 to August 14, 1997.
Histor ...
, and other telephone companies as well as several big credit agencies and two major universities. The damage caused was extensive; one company,
Southwestern Bell
Southwestern Bell Telephone Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. It does business as other d.b.a. names in its operating region, which includes Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and portions of Illinois.
The company is cu ...
, suffered losses of $370,000 alone.
* In 1983, a 19-year-old UCLA student used his PC to break into a Defense Department International Communications system.
* Between 1995 and 1998, the
Newscorp
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in N ...
satellite pay-to-view encrypted
SKY-TV service was hacked several times during an ongoing technological
arms race between a pan-European hacking group and Newscorp. The original motivation of the hackers was to watch ''Star Trek'' reruns in Germany, which was something which Newscorp did not have the copyright to allow.
* On 26 March 1999, the
Melissa worm infected a document on a victim's computer, then automatically sent that document and a copy of the virus spread via e-mail to other people.
* In February 2000, an individual going by the alias of
MafiaBoy Michael Calce (born 1984, also known as MafiaBoy) is a security expert and former computer hacker from Île Bizard, Quebec, who launched a series of highly publicized denial-of-service attacks in February 2000 against large commercial websites, inc ...
began a series
denial-of-service attack
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conn ...
s against high-profile websites, including
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...
,
Dell, Inc.,
E*TRADE
E-Trade Financial Corporation (stylized as E*TRADE) is a financial services subsidiary of Morgan Stanley, which offers an electronic trading platform to trade financial assets. The company receives revenue from interest income on margin balanc ...
,
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
, and
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
. About 50 computers at
Stanford University, and also computers at the University of California at Santa Barbara, were amongst the
zombie computer
In computing, a zombie is a computer connected to the Internet that has been compromised by a hacker via a computer virus, computer worm, or trojan horse program and can be used to perform malicious tasks under the remote direction of the hac ...
s sending pings in
DDoS
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connec ...
attacks. On 3 August 2000, Canadian federal prosecutors charged
MafiaBoy Michael Calce (born 1984, also known as MafiaBoy) is a security expert and former computer hacker from Île Bizard, Quebec, who launched a series of highly publicized denial-of-service attacks in February 2000 against large commercial websites, inc ...
with 54 counts of illegal access to computers, plus a total of ten counts of mischief to data for his attacks.
* The
Stuxnet
Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm first uncovered in 2010 and thought to have been in development since at least 2005. Stuxnet targets supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems and is believed to be responsible for causing subs ...
worm corrupted SCADA microprocessors, particularly of the types used in
Siemens centrifuge controllers.
* The
Flame malware mainly targeted Iranian officials in an attempt to obtain sensitive information.
* The
Russian Business Network The Russian Business Network (commonly abbreviated as RBN) is a multi-faceted cybercrime organization, specializing in and in some cases monopolizing personal identity theft for resale. It is the originator of MPack and an alleged operator of the ...
(RBN) was registered as an internet site in 2006. Initially, much of its activity was legitimate. But apparently, the founders soon discovered that it was more profitable to host illegitimate activities and started hiring its services to criminals. The RBN has been described by
VeriSign
Verisign Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, United States that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the , , and gene ...
as "the baddest of the bad".
It offers web hosting services and internet access to all kinds of criminal and objectionable activities, with individual activities earning up to $150 million in one year. It specialized in, and in some cases monopolized,
personal identity theft for resale. It is the originator of
MPack and an alleged operator of the now-defunct
Storm botnet.
* On 2 March 2010, Spanish investigators arrested three men suspected of infecting over 13 million computers around the world. The "botnet" of infected computers included PCs inside more than half of the
Fortune 1000
The Fortune 1000 are the 1,000 largest American companies ranked by revenues, as compiled by the American business magazine ''Fortune''. It only includes companies which are incorporated or authorized to do business in the United States, and for ...
companies and more than 40 major banks, according to investigators.
* In August 2010, the international investigation
Operation Delego
Operation Delego was a major international child pornography investigation, launched in 2009, which dismantled an international pedophile ring that operated an invitation-only Internet site named Dreamboard which featured incentives for images of ...
, operating under the aegis of the
Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
, shut down the international
pedophile
Pedophilia ( alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty a ...
ring Dreamboard. The website had approximately 600 members and may have distributed up to 123
terabyte
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...
s of child pornography (roughly equivalent to 16,000 DVDs). To date this is the single largest U.S. prosecution of an international
child pornography
Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ...
ring; 52 arrests were made worldwide.
* In January 2012,
Zappos.com experienced a security breach compromising the credit card numbers, personal information, and billing and shipping addresses of as many as 24 million customers.
* In June 2012,
LinkedIn
LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job se ...
and
eHarmony
Eharmony (styled eHarmony) is an online dating website launched in 2000. eHarmony is based in Los Angeles, California, and owned by Nucom ecommerce, a joint venture of German mass media company ProSiebenSat.1 Media and American private equity ...
were attacked, compromising 65 million
password hash
In cryptography, a key derivation function (KDF) is a cryptographic algorithm that derives one or more secret keys from a secret value such as a master key, a password, or a passphrase using a pseudorandom function (which typically uses a cryp ...
es. 30,000 passwords were cracked and 1.5 million
EHarmony
Eharmony (styled eHarmony) is an online dating website launched in 2000. eHarmony is based in Los Angeles, California, and owned by Nucom ecommerce, a joint venture of German mass media company ProSiebenSat.1 Media and American private equity ...
passwords were posted online.
* In December 2012, the
Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...
website experienced a denial of service attack, potentially compromising 70 million customers and 8.5 million active viewers. Other banks thought to be compromised include
Bank of America
The Bank of America Corporation (often abbreviated BofA or BoA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. The bank ...
,
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...
U.S. Bank, and
PNC Financial Services.
* On 23 April 2013, the Twitter account of the Associated Press was hacked. The hacker posted a hoax tweet about fictitious attacks in the White House that they claimed left then-
President Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
injured. This hoax tweet resulted in a brief plunge of 130 points from the
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.
The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity inde ...
, the removal of $136 billion from the
S&P 500
The Standard and Poor's 500, or simply the S&P 500, is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 500 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is one of the most commonly followed equity indices. As of ...
index, and the temporary suspension of AP's Twitter account. The Dow Jones later restored its session gains.
*In May 2017, 74 countries logged a
ransomware cybercrime, called "
WannaCry
The WannaCry ransomware attack was a worldwide cyberattack in May 2017 by the WannaCry ransomware cryptoworm, which targeted computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system by encrypting data and demanding ransom payments in the Bi ...
".
* Illicit access to camera sensors, microphone sensors, phonebook contacts, all internet-enabled apps, and metadata of mobile telephones running Android and iOS were reportedly made accessible by Israeli spyware, found to be in operation in at least 46 nation-states around the world. Journalists, royalty, and government officials were among the targets. Previous accusations of cases of Israeli weapons companies meddling in international telephony and smartphones have been eclipsed in the
2018 reported case.
*In December 2019,
United States intelligence officials and an investigation by
''The New York Times'' revealed that
ToTok
Totok is an Indonesian term of Javanese origin, used in Indonesia to refer to recent migrants of Arab, Chinese or European origins. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was popularised among colonists in Batavia, who initially coined ...
, a messaging application widely used in the
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...
, is a
spying
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining Secrecy, secret or Confidentiality, confidential information (Intelligence assessment, intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the Consent ...
tool for the UAE. The research revealed that the Emirati government attempted to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound, and image of those who installed the app on their phones.
Combating computer crime
It is difficult to find and combat cybercrime perpetrators due to their use of the internet in support of cross-border attacks. Not only does the internet allow people to be targeted from various locations, but the scale of the harm done can be magnified. Cybercriminals can target more than one person at a time. The availability of virtual spaces to public and private sectors has allowed cybercrime to become an everyday occurrence.
In 2018,
The Internet Crime Complaint Center received 351,937 complaints of cybercrime, which lead to $2.7 billion lost.
Investigation
In a criminal investigation, a computer can be a source of evidence (see
digital forensics
Digital forensics (sometimes known as digital forensic science) is a branch of forensic science encompassing the recovery, investigation, examination and analysis of material found in digital devices, often in relation to mobile devices and comp ...
). Even where a computer is not directly used for criminal purposes, it may contain records of value to criminal investigators in the form of a
logfile
In computing, logging is the act of keeping a log of events that occur in a computer system, such as problems, errors or just information on current operations. These events may occur in the operating system or in other software. A message or l ...
. In most countries,
Internet Service Providers are required, by law, to keep their logfiles for a predetermined amount of time. For example, the EU-wide
Data Retention Directive (previously applicable to all
EU member states) stated that all
e-mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
traffic should be retained for a minimum of 12 months.
There are many ways for cybercrime to take place, and investigations tend to start with an
IP Address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
trace; however, that is not necessarily a factual basis upon which detectives can solve a case. Different types of high-tech crime may also include elements of low-tech crime, and vice versa, making cybercrime investigators an indispensable part of modern law enforcement. Methods of cybercrime detective work are dynamic and constantly improving, whether in closed police units or in international cooperation framework.
![Tommy Tuberville touring the National Computer Forensic Institute in 2021](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Tommy_Tuberville_touring_the_National_Computer_Forensic_Institute_in_2021.jpg)
In the United States, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI)
and the
Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
(DHS)
are government agencies that combat cybercrime. The FBI has trained agents and analysts in cybercrime placed in their field offices and headquarters.
Under the DHS, the
Secret Service
A secret service is a government agency, intelligence agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For ...
has a Cyber Intelligence Section that works to target financial cyber crimes. They use their intelligence to protect against international cybercrime. Their efforts work to protect institutions, such as banks, from intrusions and information breaches. Based in Alabama, the Secret Service and the Alabama Office of Prosecution Services work together to train professionals in law enforcement through the creation of The National Computer Forensic Institute.
This institute works to provide "state and local members of the law enforcement community with training in cyber incident response, investigation, and forensic examination in cyber incident response, investigation, and forensic examination."
Due to the common use of
encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can de ...
and other techniques to hide their identity and location by cybercriminals, it can be difficult to trace a perpetrator after the crime is committed, so prevention measures are crucial.
Prevention
The Department of Homeland Security also instituted the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program. The CDM Program monitors and secures government networks by tracking and prioritizing network risks, and informing system personnel so that they can take action. In an attempt to catch intrusions before the damage is done, the DHS created the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services (ECS) to protect public and private sectors in the United States. The
Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency approves private partners that provide intrusion detection and prevention services through the ECS. An example of one of these services offered is
DNS
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
sinkholing.
Many cybersecurity products and technologies are used by organizations, but cybersecurity professionals have been skeptical of prevention-focused strategies. The mode of use of cybersecurity products has also been called into question. Google click fraud czar
Shuman Ghosemajumder
Shuman Ghosemajumder (born 1974) is a Canadian technologist, entrepreneur, and author. He is the former click fraud czar at Google, the author of works on technology and business including the Open Music Model, and co-founder of TeachAids. He w ...
has argued that companies using a combination of individual products for security is not a scalable approach and advocated for the use of cybersecurity technology primarily in the form of
services
Service may refer to:
Activities
* Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty
* Civil service, the body of employees of a government
* Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...
.
Legislation
Due to easily exploitable laws, cybercriminals use developing countries in order to evade detection and prosecution from law enforcement. In developing countries such as the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, laws against cybercrime are weak or sometimes nonexistent. These weak laws allow cybercriminals to strike from international borders and remain undetected. Even when identified, these criminals avoid being punished or extradited to a country, such as the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
, that has developed laws that allow for prosecution. While this proves difficult in some cases, agencies, such as the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
, have used deception and subterfuge to catch criminals. For example, two Russian hackers had been evading the FBI for some time. The FBI set up a fake computing company based in Seattle, Washington. They proceeded to lure the two Russian men into the United States by offering them work with this company. Upon completion of the interview, the suspects were arrested outside of the building. Clever tricks like this are sometimes a necessary part of catching cybercriminals when weak legislation makes it impossible otherwise.
Then-President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
released an executive order in April 2015 to combat cybercrime. The executive order allows the United States to freeze the assets of convicted cybercriminals and block their economic activity within the United States. This is some of the first solid legislation that combats cybercrime in this way.
The European Union adopted directive 2013/40/EU. All offences of the directive, and other definitions and procedural institutions are also in the
Council of Europe's
Convention on Cybercrime
The Convention on Cybercrime, also known as the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime or the Budapest Convention, is the first international treaty seeking to address Internet and computer crime (cybercrime) by harmonizing national laws, improving ...
.
It is not only the US and the European Union that are introducing new measures against cybercrime. On 31 May 2017, China announced that its new cybersecurity law takes effect on this date.
In Australia, common legislation in Commonwealth jurisdiction which is applied to combat cybercrime by means of criminal offence provisions and information gathering and enforcement powers includes the
Criminal Code Act 1995
The criminal law of Australia is the body of law in Australia that relates to crime.
Responsibility for criminal law in Australia is divided between the state and territory parliaments and the Commonwealth Parliament. This division is due to t ...
(Cth), the
Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth), and the
Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 Enhancement may refer to:
Human body enhancement
* Breast enhancement, breast enlargement or contouring
* Cleavage enhancement, an increase in the definition of breast cleavage
* Contrast medium, Contrast enhancement, enhancement of the contrast o ...
(Cth).
In ''Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales v Care Park Pty Limited
012 012 may refer to:
* Tyrrell 012, a Formula One racing car
* The dialing code for Pretoria
Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassie ...
NSWCA 35'', it was found that the use of a discovery order made upon a third party for the purposes of determining the identity or whereabouts of a person may be exercised merely on the prerequisite that such information requested will aid the litigation process.
In ''Dallas Buyers Club LLC v iiNet Limited
015FCA 317'', guidance is provided on the interpretation of rule 7.22 of the
Federal Court Rules 2011
Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to:
Politics
General
*Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies
*Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
(Cth) with respect to the issue of to what extent a discovery order must identify a person for it to be a valid request for information to determine the identity or whereabouts of a person in the circumstance of an end-user of an internet service being a different person to the account holder. Justice Perram stated: "... it is difficult to identify any good reason why a rule designed to aid a party in identifying wrongdoers should be so narrow as only to permit the identification of the actual wrongdoer rather than the witnesses of that wrongdoing."
Penalties
Penalties for computer-related crimes in
New York State can range from a fine and a short period of jail time for a Class A misdemeanor such as unauthorized use of a computer up to computer tampering in the first degree which is a Class C felony and can carry 3 to 15 years in prison.
However, some
hackers
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...
have been hired as
information security
Information security, sometimes shortened to InfoSec, is the practice of protecting information by mitigating information risks. It is part of information risk management. It typically involves preventing or reducing the probability of unauthorize ...
experts by private companies due to their inside knowledge of computer crime, a phenomenon which theoretically could create
perverse incentives
A perverse incentive is an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result that is contrary to the intentions of its designers. The cobra effect is the most direct kind of perverse incentive, typically because the incentive unintentionall ...
. A possible counter to this is for courts to ban convicted hackers from using the Internet or computers, even after they have been released from prisonthough as computers and the Internet become more and more central to everyday life, this type of punishment may be viewed as more and more harsh and draconian. However, nuanced approaches have been developed that manage cyber offenders' behavior without resorting to total computer or Internet bans. These approaches involve restricting individuals to specific devices which are subject to computer monitoring or computer searches by probation or parole officers.
Awareness
As technology advances and more people rely on the internet to store sensitive information such as banking or credit card information, criminals increasingly attempt to steal that information. Cybercrime is becoming more of a threat to people across the world. Raising awareness about how information is being protected and the tactics criminals use to steal that information continues to grow in importance. According to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center in 2014, there were 269,422 complaints filed. With all the claims combined there was a reported total loss of $800,492,073. But cybercrime does not yet seem to be on the average person's radar. There are 1.5 million cyber-attacks annually, which means that there are over 4,000 attacks a day, 170 attacks every hour, or nearly three attacks every minute, with studies showing that only 16% of victims had asked the people who were carrying out the attacks to stop. Anybody who uses the internet for any reason can be a victim, which is why it is important to be aware of how one is being protected while online.
Intelligence
As cybercrime has proliferated, a professional ecosystem has evolved to support individuals and groups seeking to profit from cybercriminal activities. The ecosystem has become quite specialized, including malware developers, botnet operators, professional cybercrime groups, groups specializing in the sale of stolen content, and so forth. A few of the leading cybersecurity companies have the skills, resources and visibility to follow the activities of these individuals and groups. A wide variety of information is available from these sources which can be used for defensive purposes, including technical indicators such as hashes of infected files
or malicious IPs/URLs,
as well as strategic information profiling the goals, techniques and campaigns of the profiled groups. Some of it is freely published, but consistent, ongoing access typically requires subscribing to an adversary intelligence subscription service. At the level of an individual threat actor, threat intelligence is often referred to as that actor's "TTP" or "tactics, techniques, and procedures", as the infrastructure, tools, and other technical indicators are often trivial for attackers to change. Corporate sectors are considering crucial role of
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
cybersecurity.
INTERPOL Cyber Fusion Center has begun a collaboration with cybersecurity key players to distribute information on the latest online scams, cyber threats and risks to internet users. Reports cutting across social engineered frauds, ransomware, phishing, and other has since 2017 been distributed to security agencies in over 150 countries.
Diffusion of cybercrime
The broad diffusion of cybercriminal activities is an issue in computer crime detection and prosecution.
Hacking has become less complex as hacking communities have greatly diffused their knowledge through the Internet. Blogs and communities have contributed substantially to information sharing as beginners can benefit from older hackers' knowledge and advice.
Furthermore, hacking is cheaper than ever: before the
cloud computing
Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mu ...
era, in order to spam or scam one needed a dedicated server, skills in server management, network configuration, and maintenance, knowledge of Internet service provider standards, etc. By comparison, a mail
software-as-a-service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is cons ...
is a scalable, inexpensive, bulk, and transactional e-mail-sending service for marketing purposes and could be easily set up for
spam. Cloud computing could be helpful for a cybercriminal as a way to leverage his or her attack, in terms of brute-forcing a password, improving the reach of a
botnet
A botnet is a group of Internet-connected devices, each of which runs one or more bots. Botnets can be used to perform Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, steal data, send spam, and allow the attacker to access the device and its conn ...
, or facilitating a spamming campaign.
Agencies
*
ASEAN
ASEAN ( , ), officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, militar ...
*
Australian High Tech Crime Centre
The Australian High Tech Crime Centre (AHTCC) are hosted by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) at their headquarters in Canberra. Under the auspices of the AFP, the AHTCC is party to the formal Joint Operating Arrangement established between th ...
*
Cyber Crime Investigation Cell
The Mumbai Police ( Marathi: मुंबई पोलीस, IAST: ''Mumbaī Pulīs'', formerly ''Bombay Police'') is the police department of the city of Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a part of Maharashtra Police and has the primary responsibiliti ...
, a wing of Mumbai Police, India
*
Cyber Crime Unit (Hellenic Police), formed in Greece in 1995
*
EUROPOL
*
INTERPOL
The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO; french: link=no, Organisation internationale de police criminelle), commonly known as Interpol ( , ), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and cri ...
*
National Cyber Crime Unit
The National Cyber Crime Unit (NCCU) is a command of the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency. With the creation of the National Crime Agency in 2013, the unit was formed following the merge of the Serious Organised Crime Agency's cyber division ...
, in the United Kingdom
*
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...
, in the United States
*
National White Collar Crime Center
The National White Collar Crime Center, also known as NW3C, is a congressionally funded non-profit corporation which trains state and local law enforcement agencies to combat emerging economic and cyber crime problems. The NW3C provides the general ...
, in the United States
*
Cyber Police Department - Japan National Police Agency
See also
References
Further reading
* Balkin, J., Grimmelmann, J., Katz, E., Kozlovski, N., Wagman, S. & Zarsky, T. (2006) (eds) ''Cybercrime: Digital Cops in a Networked Environment'',
New York University Press
New York University Press (or NYU Press) is a university press that is part of New York University.
History
NYU Press was founded in 1916 by the then chancellor of NYU, Elmer Ellsworth Brown.
Directors
* Arthur Huntington Nason, 1916–1 ...
, New York.
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External links
International Journal of Cyber CriminologyCommon types of cyber attacksCountering ransomware attacks
Government resources
Cybercrime.govfrom the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...
National Institute of Justice Electronic Crime Programfrom the
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...
FBI Cyber Investigators home pageUS Secret Service Computer FraudAustralian High Tech Crime CentreUK National Cyber Crime Unitfrom the
National Crime Agency
The National Crime Agency (NCA) is a national law enforcement agency in the United Kingdom. It is the UK's lead agency against organised crime; human, weapon and drug trafficking; cybercrime; and economic crime that goes across regional and in ...
{{Authority control
Cybercrime,
Crime by type
Computer security
Organized crime activity
Harassment