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Assignment
On

CYBER CRIME
Course title: English Writing

Course code: ENG1212

Spring Semester 2011

Submitted by: Submitted to:

1101020006 Debashish Moy Dutta

1101020007 Lecturer,

1101020008 Dept of English

1101020009
1101020010

Dept. of C.S.E

Date of submission: 30-03-2011

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Acknowledgement:

Firstly, we would like to give a special thank to our honorable teacher Debashishmoy dutta
for giving us the opportunity for preparing assignment on “Cyber Crime”. This is definitely
helping us to acquire lots of knowledge regarding this topic. We also like to give thanks to
our follow classmate who helped us regarding this assignment.

Sincerely Yours:

Name ID
1101020006
1101020007
1101020008
1101020009
1101020010
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Content
Introduction 04

What is cyber crime? 04

Origin and History of Cybercrime 04

Commercialization and Modernization of Cybercrime 05

Types of Cybercrime 06

Case Study 07

Effect of cyber crime in Bangladesh 09

Preventing Cybercrimes for Businesses and the Public 11

The Future of Cybercrime and Recommendations 11

References References
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Cyber crime

Introduction:

The internet has revolutionized how individuals interact with each other. After four years of
the Internet, fifty million people are connected to this global network. It took the radio thirty-
eight years to reach fifty million users, and a mere sixteen years for the computer to reach
fifty million users. The popularity of the Internet is growing exponentially.

What is cyber crime?

A new strain of crime has developed through the invention of the computer and Internet:
cybercrime. Cybercrime is when a men use computers or networks as a tool, place, or target
for criminal activity and behavior. The development of cybercrime has affected law
enforcement agencies and society. Enforcement has led to the creation of laws, policies, and
legislature. Law enforcement agencies must vigorously fight and prevent cybercrime in order
to help create a safer society.

Origin and History of Cybercrime:

The origins of cybercrime can be traced back to the days without Microsoft Windows, the
Internet, or even the Personal Computer. Stewart Nelson, a student at MIT, used the
university’s computer to generate the tones needed to access their long distance phone
service. Over the years, cybercrime and all of its auxiliaries have grown in complexity,
danger, and risk.
The term “hacking” became popular and mainstream in 1970 with the creation of the first
personal computer, the Altair 8800. The Altair 8800 created the “hacker”, as it enabled them
to own a computer and learn to program. Several years later the first multimedia computer
was released, the Commodore 64, the computer was perceived as a “toy” for teenagers, and
introduced them to present-day hacking.
The first “networks” did not use the Internet at all. The earliest of networks contained a
mainframe computer, and several “dumb” terminals. A dumb terminal possesses no processor
power; everything it runs comes off of the mainframe. These terminals had no memory or
processor, simply a mouse, keyboard, and display. This network failed, due to the simple fact
that if the mainframe crashed, so did all of the other terminals.

In 1970 researchers for Xerox developed the Ethernet at their Palo Alto Research Center. The
Ethernet is still the basis for most local area networks (LAN’s) today. A local area network
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allows many PC’s to access a server (mainframe) with the information. Thus, if a server
crashes, the user’s workstation is still accessible. The modem and phone line created a new
way for computers to communicate with each other throughout the world. This led to the
creation of the Bulletin Board System (BBS) in 1978. This system was unreliable and
extremely slow.

As the BBS service grew, it attracted many computer gurus and hackers. As the forums grew
more complex, hackers began sharing software. This is referred to as “warez”, which means
pirated software. Pirated software is applications that were created to be sold, but someone
copied the program to their computer and posted it for others to use, free of charge.

During these stages of the BBS service, pornography began to be posted. Sysops would
create a forum, post images, and charge a fee to view the pictures. Until the creation of the
dial up Internet, the BBS were for the elites, those who could afford expensive computer
equipment, such as a modem. Scientists claim that the emergence of the BBS fostered, and
are the roots of, cybercrime .

The first Internet Service Providers (ISP’s) consisted of two computer geniuses (“nerds”)
with a low cost budget. These are not referred to ISP’s, rather as Wide Area Networks,
because they were not able to communicate with the outside world. At the time, the operating
system of choice was Windows 3.x. This operating system lacked the software to access the
Internet, Transmission Control Protocol\Internet Protocol (TCP\IP) and Winsock. Once the
user has obtained the software, which could take weeks, they must configure the settings in a
text editor, with the settings written in computer jargon. Accessing the Internet in the early
stages was a challenge, and actually required hacking and programming, which later resulted
in the influx of cyber crimes .

Commercialization and Modernization of Cybercrime:

In the 1980s companies such as CompuServe, Prodigy, and AOL began to emerge. These
were commercial providers who would charge amonthly fee to users if they wanted to access
their “community”. In the 1980s the fee to dial into CompuServe was $25 per hour. Users
chose to connect through these companies due to ease of use. There was no configuring;
inserting a disk and running a program would have the user “wired” In the early 1990s the
fees for dial up internet decreased to $25 per month for unlimited access. The decline in cost
made it possible for more online criminals to emerge in the anonymous online community.

In 1990 and 1991 users began to ponder the thought of privacy. They were not sure if a third
party would intercept their Internet communications. As a result Phillip Zimmermann created
an encryption program called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). PGP was used to hide sensitive
information, but criminals also used the program to hide evidence of crimes they had
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committed to the police.

In 1994 the first online bank opened, called First Virtual. This opened up a lot of
opportunities for hackers. Cybercrime was slowly becoming more popular. In 1995 the Secret
Service and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) obtained the first Internet wiretap, which is
exactly like a phone wiretap. The DEA was able to shut down a company who was selling
illegal cell phone cloning equipment.

From here on out, Cybercrime was not uncommon. Hundreds of websites and servers were
hacked, including the US Department of Commerce and the US Senate’s website. In the
midst of chaos the Melissa virus was programmed, which sent a virus to e-mail servers
causing thousands of companies servers to malfunction .
From hacking passwords to creating viruses and worms, cyber criminals were doing it all. As
the millennium was near, a group of criminals created a website to simulate that of
Bloomberg Financial. The false news story created a huge profit for a third party small
technology company, increasing their wealth by 31% .

Entering the millennium caused a huge disruption for companies due to a Denial of Service
attack. Major web sites like MSN, Yahoo, and Apache were shut down and hacked. The
Code Red virus and Sircam virus spawned to millions of e-mail accounts worldwide.
Cybercrime has only accelerated through the years, and has no plans to slow down.

Types of Cybercrime:

Assault by Threat – threatening a person with fear for their lives or

The lives of their families or persons whose safety they are responsible for
(such as employees or communities) through the use of a computer
network such as email, videos, or phones.

Child Pornography – the use of computer networks to create, distribute,

or access materials that sexually exploit underage children.
Cyber Contraband – transferring illegal items through the internet (such
as encryption technology) that is banned in some locations.

Cyberlaundering – electronic transfer of illegally-obtained monies with

the goal of hiding its source and possibly its destination.

Cyberstalking – express or implied physical threats that creates fear

through the use of computer technology such as email, phones, text
messages, webcams, websites or videos.
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Cyberterrorism – premeditated, usually politically-motivated violence

committed against civilians through the use of, or with the help of,
computer technology.
Cybertheft – using a computer to steal. This includes activities related
to:Breaking and entering, DNS cache poisoning, embezzlement and unlawful appropriation,
espionage,identify theft ,fraud,malicious
hacking, plagiarism, and piracy. Examples include:

Cybertresspass – someone accesses a computer’s or network’s resources without the

authorization or permission of the owner but does not alter, disturb, misuse, or damage the
data or system.

Cybervandalism - Damaging or destroying data rather than stealing or misusing them (as with
cybertheft) is called cybervandalism. This can include a situation where network services are
disrupted or stopped. This deprives the computer/network owners and authorized users
(website visitors, employees) of the network itself and the data or information contained on
the network.

Case Study:

WikiLeaks Reveled The Biggest Cybercrime of All Time

WikiLeaks, a website run by Julian Assange, an Australian with a background in computer

network hacking, has already released 77,000 secret records on Afghan conflict in July and
400,000 similar documents on Iraq in October. The whistle-blowing website has released
some 250,000 cables---this time communications and messages between the US State
Department and its embassies and consulates around the world sent between 1966 and 2010.
The entire bundle of cables has been made available to five publications, including the New
York Times and the United Kingdom's Guardian to publish stories as and when they fancy.

Among the messages revealed is a report that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, among other
Arab leaders, urged the US to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad however dismissed the leak as sheer US propaganda. Other concerns aired in
the cables include the possibility of Pakistani nuclear material falling into the wrong hands,
allowing militants to make an atomic weapon. The widespread use of computer hacking by
China's government is also reported in one message.
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Other issues reportedly covered in the cables are Iranian attempts to adapt North Korean
rockets for use as long-range missiles, corruption in Afghanistan, bargaining to empty the
Guantanamo Bay prison camp, including Slovenian diplomats being told to take in a freed
prisoner to secure a meeting with President Barack Obama, US officials being instructed to
spy on the UN leadership by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, alleged links between the
Russian government and organized crime, with intelligence agencies using underworld
bosses to carry out operations, etc.

No-one has been charged with passing the diplomatic files to WikiLeaks, but suspicion has
fallen on US Army private Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June
and charged over an earlier leak of classified US documents to Assange's website.

Journalism, at the basic level, should give citizens information that helps them in their
everyday lives. So it makes sense to report on, say, development projects, changes in laws,
the weather, crime rates, politics, etc. But, what is the point in showing diplomatic cables to
general public?
People of course have right to have access into information if such information are of use.
But there are pieces of information that need to be kept confidential.

The damage the leaks will cause to American interests at home and abroad will be profound.
The release of these classified cables will only serve to hurt international relations of all the
countries of the world. Releasing documents carelessly and without regard for the
consequences is not the way a journalist should pursue his professionalism.

WikiLeaks' release of classified records may redefine the very concept of secrecy, thanks to
hacking by internet nerds like Mr. Assange. Now heads of state and civil and military
diplomats alike will be sealing their lips, lest their words are downloaded by internet hackers.
A foreign government may not wish to discuss any sensitive subject with the United States or
for that matter with any other state, now that confidentiality can't be guaranteed.

In this age of information technology and an era when there is always a sneaking suspicion
that a neighbor can suddenly turn into an enemy, a passenger may turn into a terrorist and a
diplomat may be engaged in espionage, the old values are fast dying giving rise to a delusion
of grandeur among people---security authority in an airport or journalists in a web-based
media---who are fast forgetting their onus to honor the sanctity of privacy and the necessity
of secrecy.
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Bangladesh is still unaware of Cyber threat:

Targeting to make a digital Bangladesh by 2021, we have already stepped into the digital era.
Lives will be much easier, quicker and meaningful if we use the digital facilities to perform
our day-to-day activities. Once, people did not feel satisfied if a printed newspaper was not at
their hands in the morning. Today, the same people feel nasty if the Internet is disconnected.
It is very easy to think that we will be in a digital Bangladesh in few years. But very few
people imagine that the digitalization without proper security measures will make our lives
hell overnight.
On 23 August 2004 an email was sent to the Bangla Daily Prothom Alo threatening to kill
Sheikh Hasina, the then Leader of the Opposition in the parliament. Two days latter on 25
August/2004 another email was sent to the Bangladesh Police Headquarters threatening
Khaleda Zia, the then Prime Minister, her elder son and some members of the parliament.
These were the first cyber crime incidents in Bangladesh which received due attention of the
police authority.
In 2008, a Bangladeshi petty hacker named Shahi Mirza occupied the RAB web site. In his
confession to the police, Mirza claimed that he hacked not only the RAB web site, but he had
been hacking domestic and international web sites also for long time. He invaded at least 21
domestic web sites including the web site of Bangladesh Army.
An analyst of Premium Bank Brokerage House, Mahbub Saroar, robbed nearly five million
Taka from the root level investors of the Dhaka Stock Exchange. He disseminated misleading
share-tips to his Face Book friends manipulating price of certain shares in the Dhaka Stock
Exchange. While in police custody Mahbub provided the law enforces with sensational
information about Internet fraudulence.
The Prime Minister inaugurated the opening of 64 district web-portals on 06 January 2010
while the hackers invaded 19 of them by 21 March/2010. This was the last known invasion in
government's cyber territory as well as the first criminality by the foreign hackers. However,
the news of cyber crime sporadically published in the newspapers at intervals. But like the
traditional ones most of the computer related crimes remain unpublished, unregistered and
un-investigated.
The petty hacker Shahi Mirza who hacked the RAB web site put forward a pertinent question
about our cyber security. "You do not know what the cyber security is or how to protect
yourself." He also claimed that if he would hack the RAB web site by changing the Internet
Protocol (IP), he could not be traced. One thing is clear from the confession and claim of
Mirza that though Bangladesh Police showed some success in detecting hacking business
committed inside the country, they are probably unable to trace the same if it is committed
from outside the country.

The terrorist organizations are the beneficiaries of the Internet communication system. From
disseminating motivated information to the innocent public to credit card fraud, the terrorist
organizations may use the Internet system in their benefits. Many of the terrorist
organizations maintain their own web sites. At least 12 of the 30 groups on the US State
Department's list of designated foreign terrorist organizations maintain Web sites on the
Internet. Most communications of the Al Queda network are performed through Internet.
Even the Bangladeshi terrorist organization JMB does not go less. Although their own web
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site is still unknown, they have developed Internet specialization among their operators. They
used the Internet materials to teach their members bomb-making formulae.

The intensity of cyber crime victimization in Bangladesh is yet to be measured. There are no
research or data collection efforts on how much money is lost every year due to cyber
criminality. Neither the government nor the non-government organizations have initiated any
data-collecting project about it. But many countries of the world collect and preserve
statistics on cyber crimes and the monetary loss due to cyber criminality across and outside of
their countries. In the United States the total money-loss from the reported cyber fraud is
increasing leaps and bounds. According to the US Internet Crime Complaint Center statistics,
in 2001 the dollar loss of reported cyber crime was only $17.8 million dollars. But this
amount, in 2009, reached at $559.7million dollars. Yet, it is a small portion of the actual loss
of money as only 15 percent of cases of cyber fraud are being reported to crime control
agencies.

With compare to the developing and the third world countries, the developed ones are more
infested with cyber crimes. So, to detect and investigate the cyber crime they have been
adopting innovative measures. Almost every country developed Computer Emergency
Response Team (CERT). The Malaysian Computer Emergency Response Team (MyCERT)
operates the Cyber999 Help Center, a public service that provides emergency response to
computer security related emergencies as well as assistance in handling incidents such as
computer abuses, hack attempts and other information security breaches.
The Chinese government have taken innovative techniques to fight cyber crimes. This
country is the home of the second largest number of internet users in the world. Their
measures are simultaneously preventive, investigative and propagative. According to reports
from Chinese media, two virtual police officers -- one male, one female -- will appear at the
bottom of users' browser windows every 30 minutes, a visual reminder that they are being
monitored. The virtual long arm of the law will be there to remind users of Internet security --
and to sniff out any activity the Government deems illegal.
Cyber-crime is still a low priority to Bangladesh Police. As a whole Bangladesh is not aware
of her cyber security. Though computer is becoming a common household item and the
number of Internet users has already crossed six millions, very few computer related offences
are reported to the police. As our police have not been furnished with modern techniques and
technology to investigate even traditional crimes, we cannot expect them to acquire the
necessary skills to investigate the most complicated hi-tech computer related crimes.

The present government is expected to invest millions of taka to materialize their promise to
build a digital Bangladesh. So, the issue of Cyber Security must get due priory and a
considerable portion of budget should be allocated for making the police capable of fighting
cyber crimes. There is no denying that Cyber-criminals are very much capable of robbing
Bangladesh of crores of taka. They can make havoc in our national life at any time. At that
time we will find that our stallions are stolen and we will then be very much careful to lock
our empty stables. So, let us prepare for the worse before hand. Prevention is, undoubtedly,
better than cure.
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Preventing Cybercrimes for Businesses and the Public:

Businesses have lost billions of dollars due to cyber crimes. Any time a company’s
network is shut down means a loss of profit. Many businesses, especially smaller
organizations, do not allocate proper funding for security implementations, software
and hardware.

The first step in prevention is to create a security plan for the company, a mixture of
invasive (hardware firewalls) and non-invasive (software applications) is needed.
Such examples include a router with a firewall and Norton Anti Virus. Measures need
to taken in regards to the privacy and personal information stored on servers and
computers. Adding an encryption or password can greatly detract a hacker.

It is vital for businesses to have an updated operating system. Checking for updates on
a daily, even hourly, basis will ensure that if vulnerability is found, it will be fixed.
Antivirus, anti-spam, and anti-Trojan applications are essential. These will prevent
harmful data to be placed on user workstations.

Businesses can prevent cybercrime by monitoring user workstations, going on

commercial websites dramatically increases the risk of infection. The key to success
is communication – businesses must train their employees on proper internet usage at
work, as well as how to store confidential data and passwords. As a bottom line, users
should never take work related information home that is confidential, such as
databases with social security numbers.

The Future of Cybercrime and Recommendations

The future of cyber crime is uncertain, but cyber terrorism is a threat to society that will
always exist, and law enforcement agencies must continue to expand into the “cyber”
universe. A terrorist can do more with a computer than he can with a gun. People would be
surprised if they knew how much information is stored on the Internet, and on computers,
about them.

Lastly, law enforcement must target those criminals who create spam, spyware, adware,
viruses, and worms. They are the heart of corruption on the Internet. One must work in a
pyramid, finding the creators of the viruses and worms will create a better Interne For yong
teenagers and children, parents are the first line of defense. Most parents do not track their
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child’s online usage; many children have computers in their rooms, behind closed doors.
Having such technology is a privilege, online stalking occurs mainly behind parent’s backs,
until children come forth and confess. Parents must realize that using the Internet is a
privilege, not a god given right. This is harder for the younger generation – as they grew up
with the Internet. Companies such as Myspace and Facebook must take responsibility too.
They do a poor job at verifying a user’s age. Children register for the site claiming to be 15 or
16, when in fact they are nine or ten. These websites are a lure for stalkers, based on the fact
that most users list their screen name, city, and even address. Pictures are a problem for
young women; stalkers are exposed to quite scandalous pictures of women who are only
twelve or thirteen. However, the stalker is lead to believe they are the age on the profile.

The creators of such websites need to ensure that users are of age, and perhaps limit pictures
to profiles of users 18+. Social security numbers or licenses may then verify the person’s age.
A credit card authorization is a new form of verifying one’s age, assuming no children have a
VISA or MasterCard.

It is the recommendation that all sexual predators, and anyone on parole or probation for
similar charges, have to submit their IP address for review on a periodic basis; this will
ensure that there has not been any activity on stalking websites. Furthermore, their IP
addresses should remain static, and not change. Such websites as MySpace, Facebook, and
any dating\personals site be banned. Such tasks can be accomplished electronically without
the work of parole or probation officers.