Introduction

to cyber
crime

INTRODUCTION
The information technology act, 2000
was introduced in India to deal with
cases of cyber crime.
The present chapter covers difference
between conventional and cyber crimes,
the changing nature of cyber crimes
reasons for growing cyber crimes, cyber
criminals and the modes and manner in
which cyber crimes are taken place.

CYBER CRIME
Cyber crimes involves all criminal activities or
unlawful in which computer and its network are
either used as primary mean of commission or
become its target.
Thus any activity that uses computer as an
instrumentality target or a means for
perpetrating further crime, falls within the ambit
of cyber crime.
These include a plethora of illegal activities.
The term cyber crime is an umbrella term under
which many illegal activities may be grouped
together.

 The weapon with which cyber crimes are

committed is technology and therefore,
the perpetrators of these crimes are
mostly technically skilled persons who
have a thorough understanding of the
Internet and computer applications.
The large number of criminals are
exploiting the speed, convenience and
anonymity of the internet to commit a
diverse range of criminal activities like
financial crimes, sale of articles,
pornography, online gambling, intellectual
property crime, e-mail spoofing, forgery,
cyber defamation, cyber stalking.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CYBER

CRIME AND CONVENTIONAL CRIME

The concept cyber crime is apparently not different

from the concept of conventional crime.
Both include such conducts which cause breach of
rules of law and subject to punishment.
In conventional crime a criminal can steal and rob,
similarly even in the cyber world criminal are
engaged in stealing and robbing.
In this case, they can steal a persons bank details
and siphon off money; misuse the credit card to
make numerous purchases online; use malicious
software to gain access to an organizations website
or disrupt the systems of the organization.
The malicious software can also damage software
and hardware, just like vandals damage property in
the offline world.

However there exists an appreciable

fine line of demarcation between
these two crimes in the form of
medium used in committing such
crimes.
Basis of classification

Evidence of Offences
Fake Identity
Length of investigation
Easy rescue
Force involved

A REASONS FOR GROWING CYBER CRIMES

Low risk high rewarding ventures.
Capacity to store data in
comparatively small space
Easy to access
Negligence of network users
Loss of evidence
Jurisdictional uncertainty

CYBER CRIMINALS
,
Children and adolescents between
the age group of 6-18 years
Organized hackers
Professional hackers/crackers
Discontented employees

MODE AND MANNER OF

COMMITTING CYBER CRIME
Unauthorized access to computer systems or networks /Hacking
The kind of offence is normally referred as hacking in the
generic sense which involves stealing informations from
someones computer systems by using unauthorized access
The computers work on operating systems and these
operating systems in turn are composed of millions of codes.
Human mind is fallible and it is possible that these might be a
lapse of any stage.
The cyber criminal take undue advantage of these lapses and
lacunae and penetrate into the computer system.
Such criminals are called hackers.
CASE STUDY

2. Theft of information contained in electronic form

Information in electric form includes information stores in computer

hard disks, removable storage media etc. such informations can be stolen
or damaged by appropriating the data physically or by tampering them
through the virtual media
3.Email bombing

In internet usage, an email-bomb is a form of net abuse consisting of

sending huge volume of email to an address in an attempt to overflow the
mail box which causes it to crash there.
List linking on the other hand, consists of signing a particular email ID up
to several subscriptions.
This type of bombing is effective as the person has to unsubscribe from all
the services manually.
E-mail spamming is a variant of bombing, it refers to sending email to
hundred or thousands of users.
E-mail spamming can be made worse of the recipients reply to the email,
causing all the original addresses to receive the reply.
CASE STUDY

4.Data diddling
This kind of attack involves altering raw data just before a
computer processes it and then changing it back when it
processes is completed.
It involves changing data with malicious intentions during or
before feeding it into computer and provide undue advantage to
a specific party.
It also includes adding fraudulent input Data, altering input
Data, omitting the desired input data , wrongly posting a
trasaction making alteration
CASE STUDY
5.Salami attacks
This kind of crime is normally prevalent in the financial
institutions or for the purpose of committing financial crimes by
making small alterations that would not be easily notice. The
key here is to make the alteration so insignificant that in a single
case it would go completely unnoticed.
CASE STUDY

6.Virus / work attacks

Viruses or worms are used to disrupt the
functioning of a computer system or network by
altering r deleting the data available on a
computer.
CASE STUDY
7.Logic bombs
A logic bomb tells a computer to conclude a set
of instructions at a certain time under certain
specified condition. These are event dependent
program which lie undetected in software or
hardware, ready to be detonated when a certain
event (Known as a trigger event occur.
CASE STUDY

8.Trojan attacks
This term has its origin in the word. Trojan
house. It is an unauthorized computer
program that performs some apparently
useful function to represent itself as an
authorized program, but which also contains
malicious hidden code. These codes may
introduce a virus or other computer bug or it
may permit unauthorized access by an
outside users. The most common form of
installing a Trojan is through e-mail.
CASE STUDY

10.Internet time thefts

The internet surfing hours of the victim are
used up by another person in the kind of theft
Internet time theft comes under hacking. It is
the user by an unauthorized person, of the
Internet hours paid for by another person. The
person who gets access to someone elses ISP
user ID and password, either by hacking, or by
gaining access to it by illegal means, uses it to
access the Internet without the other persons
knowledge.
CASE STUDY
1.Colonel Bajwas case

Cyber Crimes in India