CYBER CRIME INVESTIGATION AND PREVENTION

Cyber Crime:

Cyber crime is an evil having its origin in the growing dependence on computers in modern life.

            The definition of cyber crime would be “unlawful acts wherein the computers are either a tool or a target or both”.  “Acts that is punishable by the IT Act.

Cyber crimes fall into three slots.

• Those against persons
• Against business and non-business organisations
• Crime targeting the government

The Computer is a tool for an unlawful act.

• Financial claims: This would include cheating, credit card frauds, money laundering etc
• Cyber Pornography: This would include pornographic websites; pornographic magazines produced using computer and the Internet.
• Sale of illegal articles: Sale of narcotics, weapons and wildlife etc.
• Online gambling: These websites are actually fronts for money laundering.
• Intellectual Property Crimes: Software piracy, copyright infringement, trademarks violations etc.

• E-mail spoofing: A spoofed email is one that appears to originate from one source but actually has been sent from another source.
• Forgery: Counterfeit currency notes, postage and revenue stamps, mark sheets etc.
• Cyber Defamation: Defamation takes place with the help of computers and or the Internet.
• Cyber stalking: It involves following a person’s movements across the Internet by posting messages on the bulletin boards frequented by the victim, entering the chat-rooms frequented by the victim. 

Computer Network is a target for an unlawful act.  Some examples are:

• Unauthorised access to computer system or network:
• Theft of information contained in electronic from:
• E-mail bombing:
• Data diddling:
• Salami attacks
• Denial of service:
• Virus/worm:
• Logic bombs:
• Trojan horse:
• Internet time theft:
• Physically damaging a computer system

Cyber crimes like network intrusion are difficult to detect and most of crimes against individual like cyber stalking, cyber defamation, cyber pornography can be detected and investigated through following steps:

After receiving such type of mail

1)       Give command to computer to show full header of mail.

2)       In full header find out the IP (Internet Product) number and time of delivery of number and this IP number always different for every mail.  From this IP number we can know who was the Internet service provider for that system from which the mail had come.

3)       To know about Internet service provider from IP number takes the service of search engine like nic.com, macffvisualroute.com, apnic.com, arin.com

4)       After opening the website of any of above mentioned search engine, feed the IP number and after some time name of ISP can be obtained.

5)       After getting the name of ISP we can get the information about the sender from the ISP by giving them the IP number, date and time of sender.

6)       ISP will provide the address and phone number of the system, which was used to send the mail with bad intention.

7)       After knowing the address and phone number criminal can be apprehended by using conventional police methods.

PREVENTIVE STEPS FOR INDIVIDUALS

CHILDREN:

            Do not give out identifying information such as Name, Home address, School name or Telephone number in a chat room.  Do not give photography to anyone on the Net without first checking or informing parents and guardians.  Do not respond to messages which are suggestive, obscene, belligerent or threatening, do not arrange a face-to-face meeting without telling parents or guardians remember that people online may not be who they seem.

PARENTS

            Use content filtering software on your PC to protect your children from pornography, gambling, hate speech, drugs and alcohol.

            There is also software to establish time controls for use of limpets (for example blocking usage after a particular time) and allowing parents to see which site item children have visited, Use this software to keep track of the type of activities of children.

GENERAL INFORMATION

            Don’t delete harmful communications.  These provide vital information about system and address of the person behind these.

• Try not to panic

• If you feel any immediate physical danger contact your local police
• Avoid getting into huge arguments online during chat and discussions with other users
• Remember that all other Internet users are stranger; you do not know who you are chatting with, so be careful.
• Be extremely careful about how you share personal information about yourself online.
• Choose your nickname carefully
• Do not share personal information in public space online; do not give it to strangers.
• Be extremely cautious about meeting online introduced person.  If you choose to meet, do so in a public place along a friend.
• If a situation online becomes hostile, log off and if a situation places you in fear, contact a local law agency.
• Save all communications for evidence.  Do no edit it in any way.  Also, keep a record of your contacts inform System Administrator or Law Enforcement Officials.

1)       PHYSICAL SECURITY:

2)       ACCESS CONTROL: Using firewalls, which provide a centralized point from which to permit or along across.  Firewall allows only authorized communications between the internal and external network.

3)       PASSWORD: The use of passwords in the most common security for network system including servers, routers and firewalls.

4)       FINDING THE HOLES IN NETWORK: System managers should track down the holes before the intrudes do.

5)       USING NETWORK SCANNING PROGRAMS:  There is another product available called COPS (Computer Oracle and Password System).  It scans for poor passwords, dangerous file permissions, and dates of key files compared to dates of CERT security advisors.

6)       USING INTRUSION ALERT PROGRAMS:

7)       USING ENCRYPTION: With the right encryption/decryption software installed, it will hook up to mail program and encrypt/decrypt messages automatically without user interaction.