The Oxford Reference Online defines cyber crime as crime committed over the Internet. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines cyber crime as any crime that is committed by means of special knowledge or expert use of computer technology. So what exactly is Cyber Crime? Cyber crime could reasonably include a wide variety of criminal offences and activities.

The Internet – or Cyber Space as it s sometimes called, is a borderless environment unlike a brick and mortar world. Even though it is indispensable as a knowledge bank, it is an ideal tool for someone with a criminal bent of mind, who can use this environment to his/ her maximum advantage.

It is not a surprise that Cyber Crimes like money cyber stalking, denial of service, e-mail abuse, chat abuse and other crimes are on the rise. Cyber Terrorist and cyber mafia are emerging with great force, whose activities are going to threaten the sovereignty of nations and world order. Hence Cyber crime can be refeered to unlawful act wherein the computer is used either as

• 
       . a tool or
       . a target or
       . both

Motive Behind The Crime

1. 
       . Greed
       . Power
       . Publicity
       . Revenge
       . Adventure
       . Desire to access forbidden information
       . Destructive mindset
       . Wants to sell new security services

Common most cyber crimes

Hacking

Hacking in simple terms means an illegal intrusion into a computer system and/or network. There is an equivalent term to hacking i.e. cracking, but from Indian Laws perspective there is no difference between the term hacking and cracking. Every act committed towards breaking into a computer and/or network is hacking. Hackers write or use ready-made computer programs to attack the target computer. They possess the desire to destruct and they get the kick out of such destruction. Some hackers hack for personal monetary gains, such as to stealing the credit card information, transferring money from various bank accounts to their own account followed by withdrawal of money. They extort money from some corporate giant threatening him to publish the stolen information which is critical in nature.

Government websites are the hot targets of the hackers due to the press coverage, it receives. Hackers enjoy the media coverage.

Child Pornography

The Internet is being highly used by its abusers to reach and abuse children sexually, worldwide. The internet is very fast becoming a household commodity in India . It’s explosion has made the children a viable victim to the cyber crime. As more homes have access to internet, more children would be using the internet and more are the chances of falling victim to the aggression of pedophiles.

The easy access to the pornographic contents readily and freely available over the internet lower the inhibitions of the children. Pedophiles lure the children by distributing pornographic material, then they try to meet them for sex or to take their nude photographs including their engagement in sexual positions. Sometimes Pedophiles contact children in the chat rooms posing as teenagers or a child of similar age, then they start becoming friendlier with them and win their confidence. Then slowly pedophiles start sexual chat to help children shed their inhibitions about sex and then call them out for personal interaction. Then starts actual exploitation of the children by offering them some money or falsely promising them good opportunities in life. The pedophiles then sexually exploit the children either by using them as sexual objects or by taking their pornographic pictures in order to sell those over the internet.

In physical world, parents know the face of dangers and they know how to avoid & face the problems by following simple rules and accordingly they advice their children to keep away from dangerous things and ways. But in case of cyber world, most of the parents do not themselves know about the basics in internet and dangers posed by various services offered over the internet. Hence the children are left unprotected in the cyber world. Pedophiles take advantage of this situation and lure the children, who are not advised by their parents or by their teachers about what is wrong and what is right for them while browsing the internet.

How do they Operate

a. Pedophiles use false identity to trap the children/teenagers

b. Pedophiles contact children/teens in various chat rooms which are used by children/teen to interact with other children/teen.

c. Befriend the child/teen.

d. Extract personal information from the child/teen by winning his confidence.

e. Gets the e-mail address of the child/teen and starts making contacts on the victim’s e-mail address as well.

f. Starts sending pornographic images/text to the victim including child pornographic images in order to help child/teen shed his inhibitions so that a feeling is created in the mind of the victim that what is being fed to him is normal and that everybody does it.

g. Extract personal information from child/teen.

h. At the end of it, the pedophile set up a meeting with the child/teen out of the house and then drag him into the net to further sexually assault him or to use him as a sex object.

In order to prevent your child/teen from falling into the trap of pedophile, read the tips under Tips & Tricks heading.

Cyber Stalking

Cyber Stalking can be defined as the repeated acts harassment or threatening behavior of the cyber criminal towards the victim by using internet services. Stalking in General terms can be referred to as the repeated acts of harassment targeting the victim such as following the victim, making harassing phone calls, killing the victims pet, vandalizing victims property, leaving written messages or objects. Stalking may be followed by serious violent acts such as physical harm to the victim and the same has to be treated and viewed seriously. It all depends on the course of conduct of the stalker.

Both kind of Stalkers’ Online & Offline – have desire to control the victims life. Majority of the stalkers are the dejected lovers or ex-lovers, who then want to harass the victim because they failed to satisfy their secret desires. Most of the stalkers are men and victim female.

How do they Operate

a. Collect all personal information about the victim such as name, family background, Telephone Numbers of residence and work place, daily routine of the victim, address of residence and place of work, date of birth etc. If the stalker is one of the acquaintances of the victim he can easily get this information. If stalker is a stranger to victim, he collects the information from the internet resources such as various profiles, the victim may have filled in while opening the chat or e-mail account or while signing an account with some website.

b. The stalker may post this information on any website related to sex-services or dating services, posing as if the victim is posting this information and invite the people to call the victim on her telephone numbers to have sexual services. Stalker even uses very filthy and obscene language to invite the interested persons.

c. People of all kind from nook and corner of the World, who come across this information, start calling the victim at her residence and/or work place, asking for sexual services or relationships.

d. Some stalkers subscribe the e-mail account of the victim to innumerable pornographic and sex sites, because of which victim starts receiving such kind of unsolicited e-mails.

e. Some stalkers keep on sending repeated e-mails asking for various kinds of favors or threaten the victim.

f. In online stalking the stalker can make third party to harass the victim.

g. Follow their victim from board to board. They “hangout” on the same BB’s as their victim, many times posting notes to the victim, making sure the victim is aware that he/she is being followed. Many times they will “flame” their victim (becoming argumentative, insulting) to get their attention.

h. Stalkers will almost always make contact with their victims through email. The letters may be loving, threatening, or sexually explicit. He will many times use multiple names when contacting the victim.

i. Contact victim via telephone. If the stalker is able to access the victims telephone, he will many times make calls to the victim to threaten, harass, or intimidate them.

j. Track the victim to his/her home.

Definition of Cyber stalking?

Although there is no universally accepted definition of cyber stalking, the term is used in this report to refer to the use of the Internet, e-mail, or other electronic communications devices to stalk another person. Stalking generally involves harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, such as following a person, appearing at a person’s home or place of business, making harassing phone calls, leaving written messages or objects, or vandalizing a person’s property. Most stalking laws require that the perpetrator make a credible threat of violence against the victim; others include threats against the victim’s immediate family; and still others require only that the alleged stalker’s course of conduct constitute an implied threat.(1) While some conduct involving annoying or menacing behavior might fall short of illegal stalking, such behavior may be a prelude to stalking and violence and should be treated seriously.

Nature and Extent of Cyber stalking

An existing problem aggravated by new technology

Although online harassment and threats can take many forms, cyber stalking shares important characteristics with offline stalking. Many stalkers – online or off – are motivated by a desire to exert control over their victims and engage in similar types of behavior to accomplish this end. As with offline stalking, the available evidence (which is largely anecdotal) suggests that the majority of cyber stalkers are men and the majority of their victims are women, although there have been reported cases of women cyber stalking men and of same-sex cyber stalking. In many cases, the cyber stalker and the victim had a prior relationship, and the cyber stalking begins when the victim attempts to break off the relationship. However, there also have been many instances of cyber stalking by strangers. Given the enormous amount of personal information available through the Internet, a cyber stalker can easily locate private information about a potential victim with a few mouse clicks or key strokes.

The fact that cyber stalking does not involve physical contact may create the misperception that it is more benign than physical stalking. This is not necessarily true. As the Internet becomes an ever more integral part of our personal and professional lives, stalkers can take advantage of the ease of communications as well as increased access to personal information. In addition, the ease of use and non-confrontational, impersonal, and sometimes anonymous nature of Internet communications may remove disincentives to cyber stalking. Put another way, whereas a potential stalker may be unwilling or unable to confront a victim in person or on the telephone, he or she may have little hesitation sending harassing or threatening electronic communications to a victim. Finally, as with physical stalking, online harassment and threats may be a prelude to more serious behavior, including physical violence.

Denial of service Attack

This is an act by the criminal, who floods the bandwidth of the victims network or fills his e-mail box with spam mail depriving him of the services he is entitled to access or provide.

Short for denial-of-service attack, a type of attack on a network that is designed to bring the network to its knees by flooding it with useless traffic. Many DOS attacks, such as the Ping of Death and Teardrop attacks, exploit limitations in the TCP/IP protocols. For all known DOS attacks, there are software fixes that system administrators can install to limit the damage caused by the attacks. But, like Virus, new DOS attacks are constantly being dreamed up by Hacker.

Phishing

The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.. By spamming large groups of people, the phisher’s counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who actually had listed credit card numbers with legitimately. Phishing, also referred to as brand spoofing or carding, is a variation on fishing, as the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.

Types of online fraud

There are many types of online fraud.

. Internet banking fraud :

Internet banking fraud is fraud or theft committed using online technology to illegally remove money from, or transfer it to, a different bank account. Phishing is an activity that facilitates Internet Banking Fraud.

S. Shopping and auction site fraud :

Regarding online transactions, it is advisable to select an escrow (secure payment) service yourself rather than accept advice from the seller. Do not click on links to banking or escrow services provided in emails as these may lead to fraudulent sites.

S. Scams :

'Nigerian letter' or '419' scams, as well as 'lottery' or 'Spanish lottery' scams, attempt to lure victims into a type of fraud known as an 'illegal advance fee'. They typically arrive via email.

Criminals send out millions of these fraudulent spam emails to random email addresses in the hope of enticing someone to respond.

Although the stories in these scams vary widely, after an initial exchange of conversation or emails with the victim, they all usually ask victims to provide bank account or personal details in order to receive a fictitious financial windfall.

The promised windfall may be lottery winnings, a huge inheritance, a multi-million dollar bank transfer, etc. While the windfall payment is never made, victims pay large sums of money to cover various false costs and fees.
 

. Mule recruitment - fraudulent employment :

What is Mule Recruitment?

'Mule Recruitment' is an attempt to get a person to receive stolen funds using his or her bank account, and then transfer those funds to criminals overseas.

How Mule Recruitment works?

Usually, criminals send out millions of fraudulent job and employment emails to random email addresses, in the hope of involving unsuspecting, innocent persons in their criminal activity.

The Cyber cell advises that you should ignore and immediately delete any such emails.

Criminals also frequently advertise these bogus jobs on popular employment and job-seeking websites, or approach persons online in chat rooms with 'job offers'.

CAUTION

If you have received money in your bank account, transferred or attempted to transfer money overseas under these circumstances, please contact your financial institution immediately.

Depending on the situation, it is possible that people who agree to participate in such 'jobs' may be prosecuted.

Other methods of Mule recruitment

Online criminals are now finding additional ways to launder funds which have been stolen from Indian bank customers.

The new methodology expands on existing money laundering scams; criminals advertise jobs on popular employment or job-seeking websites, online in chat rooms or through unsolicited employment emails.

In this instance, the Mule receives electronic or associated goods, purchased using fraudulently obtained funds. The Mule is then provided with instructions on how and where to forward the goods, and is promised percentage payment for their services.
Mules unknowingly ship this equipment off, normally to an overseas address, and are often not paid for this ‘employment’.

Depending on the circumstances, Mules may also face prosecution. A conviction for an offence of money laundering also.

If you have received money in your bank account, or have received and/or forwarded goods under these circumstances, please report the incident to your bank and Cyber cell or the nearest police station.

Depending on the circumstances, people engaged in the laundering of stolen funds may be prosecuted.

Investment and Fund Management companies should also be aware that organised crime groups also appear to be utilising B-Pay to transfer stolen funds from victim accounts to accounts held by the management companies. Accounts are often held in false names or the result of an identity takeover. Stolen funds are then transferred from the managed fund accounts to an alternate account where the crime groups withdraw cash at a branch.

Investment companies should be aware of this methodology and audit transactions to prevent the loss of funds.