Monday, October 5, 2009

Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime

Hi frenz this is a information about a organisation which protect society against cyber crime. This is one of the way to protect society against the cybercrimes where Malaysia can apply the same application as other country. Enjoy read it.

Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime

The aims of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime (“COECCC”) are to achieve a common criminal policy to protect society against cyber crime by adopting appropriate legislation and to foster international co-operation.

The working group proposed that legislation regarding computer crime should look towards international developments so that it remains up to date. In particular, the working group compared the COECCC with Hong Kong’s existing legislation and the group’s proposals are in line with the COECCC, some interesting points arising from the comparison are discussed below.

Article 6 of the COECCC states that each party to the convention still shall make it an offence to produce, distribute or possess devices, computer programs or password designed specifically for the purposes of committing offences such as hacking. There is no legislation in Hong Kong outlawing “hacking tools”, nor would the working group recommended legislation to make them illegal. The reason cited was that system managers may wish to use these to test their security measures. However, it might be possible to license these “hacking tools” to legitimate users only and make it an offence to sell hacking tools (in line with Article 6 of the COECCC). This would make it more difficult for hackers to operate and make it easier to prosecute them, as prosecution would simply rest on of these devices.

Article 9 of the COECCC deals with child pornography on a computer system. The CRO does not deal with this issue but the Prevention of Child Pornography Bill is currently being discussed and will, in the future, create concrete legislation to address this.

Reference: Internet Law in Hong Kong
by Renuka Jeyabalan

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Internet Security

Friends, I would like share something that might be a worthy read here. Most of us are fond of updating and downloading anti-viruses, especially students in the varsity. Our computers and notebooks are prone to get “infected” and we are used to installing anti-viruses as our means of security for our computers. But is it really safe? What if I tell you that there are cyber criminals who use this circumstances as their platform to install not anti-virus but malware into our computers?

This article deals with the subject of internet security and why you must pay close attention when you decide to download anti-viruses via the internet. Hope it will throw some light into this subject. Read on!

When a computer connects to a network and begins communicating with others, it is taking a risk. Internet security involves the protection of a computer's internet account and files from intrusion of an unknown user. Basic security measures involve protection by well selected passwords, change of file permissions and back up of computer's data.

Security concerns are in some ways peripheral to normal business working, but serve to highlight just how important it is that business users feel confident when using IT systems. Security will probably always be high on the IT agenda simply because cyber criminals know that a successful attack is very profitable. This means they will always strive to find new ways to circumvent IT security, and users will consequently need to be continually vigilant. Whenever decisions need to be made about how to enhance a system, security will need to be held uppermost among its requirements. Anti-viruses helps to enhance our computer’s security system but these days, we need to be alert even as we chose anti-virus for our computer.

Some apparently useful programs also contain features with hidden malicious intent. Such programs are known as Malware, Viruses, Trojans, Worms, Spyware and Bots.

  • Malware is the most general name for any malicious software designed for example to infiltrate, spy on or damage a computer or other programmable device or system of sufficient complexity, such as a home or office computer system, network, mobile phone, PDA, automated device or robot.
  • Viruses are programs which are able to replicate their structure or effect by integrating themselves or references to themselves, etc into existing files or structures on a penetrated computer. They usually also have a malicious or humorous payload designed to threaten or modify the actions or data of the host device or system without consent. For example by deleting, corrupting or otherwise hiding information from its owner.
  • Trojans-Trojan Horses are programs which may pretend to do one thing, but in reality steal information, alter it or cause other problems on a such as a computer or programmable device / system. Trojans can be hard to detect.
  • Spyware includes programs that surreptitiously monitor keystrokes, or other activity on a computer system and report that information to others without consent.
  • Worms are programs which are able to replicate themselves over a (possibly extensive) computer network, and also perform malicious acts that may ultimately affect a whole society / economy.
  • Bots are program which take over and use the resources of a computer system over a network without consent, and communicate those results to others who may control the Bots.

The above concepts overlap and they can obviously be combined. The terminology is evolving these days.

Antivirus programs and Internet security programs are useful in protecting a computer or programmable device / system from malware.

Such programs are used to detect and usually eliminate viruses. Anti-virus software can be purchased or downloaded via the internet. Care should be taken in selecting anti-virus software, as some programs are not as effective as others in finding and eliminating viruses or malware. Also, when downloading anti-virus software from the Internet, one should be cautious as some websites say they are providing protection from viruses with their software, but are really trying to install malware on your computer by disguising it as something else.

So there you go, people! It is vital that we have good internet security for our computers or notebooks in order to not fall as victims of cyber crimes.

With reference to Wikipedia. :)


by dharshinnii

Saturday, October 3, 2009

Types of Cybercrime

Hi frenz lets we have a knowledge on types of cybercrime. As a cyberlaw student we should have a knowledge on it.

Types of Cybercrime
• HACKING
• DENIAL OF SERVICE
ATTACK
• VIRUS DISSEMINATION
• SOFTWARE PIRACY
• PORNOGRAPHY
• IRC Crime
• CREDIT CARD FRAUD
• PHISHING
• SPOOFING
• CYBER STALKING
• CYBER
DEFAMATION
• THREATENING
• SALAMI ATTACK
• NET EXTORTION

HACKING
The act of gaining unauthorized access to a computer system or network and in some cases making unauthorized use of this access. Hacking is also the act by which other forms of cyber-crime (e.g., fraud, terrorism, etc.) are committed. Hacking in simple terms means illegal intrusion into a computer system without the permission of the computer owner/user.

DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK
This is an act by the criminal, who floods the band width of the victim’s network or fills his e-mail box with spam mail depriving him of the services he is entitled to access or provide.

VIRUS DISSEMINATION
Malicious software that attaches iitself to other software.
(virus, worms, Trojan Horse, Time bomb,Logic Bomb, Rabbit and Bacterium are the malicious soft wares)

SOFTWARE PIRACY
Theft of software through the iillegal copying of genuine programs or the counterfeiting and distribution of products intended to pass for the original. Retail revenue losses world wide are ever increasing due to this crime
Can be done in various ways such as end user copying, hard disk loading, Counterfeiting, Illegal downloads from the iinternet etc.

PRONOGRAPHY
Pornography is the first consistently successful ecommerce product. It was a
deceptive marketing tactics and mouse trapping technologies. Pronography encourage customers to access their websites. Anybody including children can log on to the internet and access website with pronography contents with a click of a mouse.

IRC CRIME
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers have chat rooms in which people from anywhere the world can come together and chat with each other Criminals use it for meeting coconspirators. Hackers use it for discussing their exploits / sharing the techniques
Paedophiles use chat rooms to allure small children.

CREDIT CARD FRAUD
You siimply have to type credit card number into www page off the vendor for
online transaction If electronic transactions are not secured the credit card numbers can be stolen by the hackers who can misuse this card by impersonating the credit card owner.

NET EXTORTION
Copying the company’s confidential data in order to extort said company for huge amount.

PHISHING
It is technique of pulling out confidential information from the bank/financial institutional account holders by deceptive means.

Spoofiing
Getting one computer on a network to pretend to have the identity of another computer, usually one with special access privileges ,, so as to obtain access to the other computers on the network.

CYBER STALKING
The Criminal follows the victim by sending emails, entering the chat rooms frequently.

CYBER DEFAMATION
The Criminal sends emails containing defamatory matters to all concerned of the victim or post the defamatory matters on a website. (disgruntled employee may do this against boss, ex-boys friend against girl, divorced husband against wife etc)

THREATENING
The Criminal sends threatening email or comes in contact in chat rooms with
victim. (Any one disgruntled may do this against boss, friend or official)

SALAMI ATTACK
In such crime criminal makes insignificant changes in such a manner that such changes
would go unnoticed. Criminal makes such program that deducts small amount like 2.50 per month from the account of all the customer of the Bank and deposit the same in his account. In this case no account holder will approach the bank for such small amount but criminal gains huge amount.

http//cybercelimumbai.com/files
posted by Renuka a/p Jeyabalan

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Law that Governs Cyber Crime....

HYE...FRENS...AS I BROWSING,I FOUND SOME ESSENTIAL ARTICLES REGARDING THE LAW THAT GOVERNS CYBER CRIMES..HOPE U GURLS GET BENEFIT FROM THAT..ENJOY READING IT..

A)EUROPEAN COMMISSION

The European Commission adopted a proposal for new laws against cybercrime to harmonise laws that deal with hacking, viruses and denial of service attacks. All EU Member States are also members of the Council of Europe which recently agreed a Cybercrime Convention with the same aim

The Commission adopted its proposal for a Council Framework Decision on "Attacks against information systems" seeks to ensure that Europe's law enforcement and judicial authorities can take action against crimes for which existing laws were not designed. It also aims to encourage and promote information security. Antonio Vitorino, European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, said:
"Member States' laws contain some significant gaps which could hamper the ability of law enforcement and judicial authorities to respond to crimes against information systems. Given the trans-national nature of hacking, virus and denial of service attacks, it is important that the European Union takes action in this area to ensure effective police and judicial co-operation."
The Framework Decision that is now being proposed would approximate criminal law rules and facilitate judicial co-operation for hacking, described by the Commission as “illegal access to information systems” and denial of service and virus attacks – described as “illegal interference with information systems.” The Commission says its proposed Framework Decision is technology neutral and “takes account of the broader Information Society context.” The Commission says the proposed Framework Decision also takes into account other international activities such as the work of the G8 and the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.

B)INDIAN LAW

In Indian law, cyber crime has to be voluntary and willful, an act or omission that adversely affects a person or property. The IT Act provides the backbone for e-commerce and India’s approach has been to look at e-governance and e-commerce primarily from the promotional aspects looking at the vast opportunities and the need to sensitize the population to the possibilities of the information age. There is the need to take in to consideration the security aspects.

Until recently, many information technology (IT) professionals lacked awareness of and interest in the cyber crime phenomenon. In many cases, law enforcement officers have lacked the tools needed to tackle the problem; old laws didn’t quite fit the crimes being committed, new laws hadn’t quite caught up to the reality of what was happening, and there were few court precedents to look to for guidance. Furthermore, debates over privacy issues hampered the ability of enforcement agents to gather the evidence needed to prosecute these new cases. Finally, there was a certain amount of antipathy—or at the least, distrust— between the two most important players in any effective fight against cyber crime: law enforcement agencies and computer professionals. Yet close cooperation between the two is crucial if we are to control the cyber crime problem and make the Internet a safe “place” for its users.

Law enforcement personnel understand the criminal mindset and know the basics of gathering evidence and bringing offenders to justice. IT personnel understand computers and networks, how they work, and how to track down information on them. Each has half of the key to defeating the cyber criminal. IT professionals need good definitions of cybercrime in order to know when (and what) to report to police, but law enforcement agencies must have statutory definitions of specific crimes in order to charge a criminal with an offense. The first step in specifically defining individual cybercrimes is to sort all the acts that can be considered cybercrimes into organized categories.

In Indian law, cyber crime has to be voluntary and willful, an act or omission that adversely affects a person or property. The IT Act provides the backbone for e-commerce and India’s approach has been to look at e-governance and e-commerce primarily from the promotional aspects looking at the vast opportunities and the need to sensitize the population to the possibilities of the information age. There is the need to take in to consideration the security aspects.
Courtsey: An Article by Talwant Singh Addl. Distt. & Sessions Judge, Delhi

C)UN RESOLUTION

A broad, inclusive focus is necessary to address problems of cybercrime, going beyond criminal law, penal procedures and law enforcement. The focus should include requirements for the secure functioning of a cyber-economy optimizing business confidence and individual privacy, as well as strategies to promote and protect the innovation and wealth-creating potential and opportunities of information and computing technologies, including early warning and response mechanisms in case of cyberattacks. Behind the prevention and prosecution of computer-related crime looms the larger challenge of creating a global culture of cybersecurity, addressing the needs of all societies, including developing countries, with their emerging and still vulnerable information technology structures.

International cooperation at all levels should be developed further. Because of its universal character, the United Nations system, with improved internal coordination mechanisms called for by the General Assembly, should have the leading role in intergovernmental activities to ensure the functioning and protection of cyberspace so that it is not abused or exploited by criminals or terrorists. In particular, the United Nations system should be instrumental in advancing global approaches to combating cybercrime and to procedures for international cooperation, with a view to averting and mitigating the negative impact of cybercrime on critical infrastructure, sustainable development, protection of privacy, e-commerce, banking and trade.

All States should be encouraged to update their criminal laws as soon as possible, in order to address the particular nature of cybercrime. With respect to traditional forms of crime committed through the use of new technologies, this updating may be done by clarifying or abolishing provisions that are no longer completely adequate, such as statutes unable to address destruction or theft of intangibles, or by creating new provisions for new crimes, such as unauthorized access to computers or computer networks. Such updating should also include procedural laws (for tracing communications, for example) and laws, agreements or arrangements on mutual legal assistance (for rapid preservation of data, for example). In determining the strength of new legislation, States should be encouraged to be inspired by the provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.

Governments, the private sector and non-governmental organizations should work together to bridge the digital divide, to raise public awareness about the risks of cybercrime and introduce appropriate countermeasures and to enhance the capacity of criminal justice professionals, including law enforcement personnel, prosecutors and judges. For this purpose, national judicial administrations and institutions of legal learning should include comprehensive curricula on computer related crime in their teaching schedules.

Cybercrime policy should be evidence-based and subject to rigorous evaluation to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, concerted and coordinated efforts at the international level should be made to establish funding mechanisms to facilitate practical research and curb many types of newly emerging cybercrime. It is, however, equally important to ensure that research be internationally coordinated and that research results be made widely available.

UNODC should bring the results of the Workshop on Measures to Combat Computer-related Crime, to be held during the Eleventh Congress, to the attention of the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, to be held in Tunis in 2005, for its consideration.

Courtsey: An Article by Talwant Singh Addl. Distt. & Sessions Judge, Delhi

EXRACTED FROM: http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02257/more.html

What is Cyber Crime???

What is this Cyber crime? We read about it in newspapers very often. Let's look at the dictionary definition of Cybercrime: "It is a criminal activity committed on the internet. This is a broad term that describes everything from electronic cracking to denial of service attacks that cause electronic commerce sites to lose money". Mr. Pavan Duggal, who is the President of www.cyberlaws.net and consultant, in a report has clearly defined the various categories and types of cybercrimes. Cybercrimes can be basically divided into 3 major categories:

1. Cybercrimes against persons.
2. Cybercrimes against property.
3. Cybercrimes against government.

a) Cybercrimes against persons

Cybercrimes committed against persons include various crimes like transmission of child-pornography, harassment of any one with the use of a computer such as e-mail. The trafficking, distribution, posting, and dissemination of obscene material including pornography and indecent exposure, constitutes one of the most important Cybercrimes known today. The potential harm of such a crime to humanity can hardly be amplified. This is one Cybercrime which threatens to undermine the growth of the younger generation as also leave irreparable scars and injury on the younger generation, if not controlled.

A minor girl in Ahmedabad was lured to a private place through cyberchat by a man, who, along with his friends, attempted to gangrape her. As some passersby heard her cry, she was rescued.

Another example wherein the damage was not done to a person but to the masses is the case of the Melissa virus. The Melissa virus first appeared on the internet in March of 1999. It spread rapidly throughout computer systems in the United States and Europe. It is estimated that the virus caused 80 million dollars in damages to computers worldwide.

In the United States alone, the virus made its way through 1.2 million computers in one-fifth of the country's largest businesses. David Smith pleaded guilty on Dec. 9, 1999 to state and federal charges associated with his creation of the Melissa virus. There are numerous examples of such computer viruses few of them being "Melissa" and "love bug".
Cyberharassment is a distinct Cybercrime. Various kinds of harassment can and do occur in cyberspace, or through the use of cyberspace. Harassment can be sexual, racial, religious, or other. Persons perpetuating such harassment are also guilty of cybercrimes. Cyberharassment as a crime also brings us to another related area of violation of privacy of citizens. Violation of privacy of online citizens is a Cybercrime of a grave nature. No one likes any other person invading the invaluable and extremely touchy area of his or her own privacy which the medium of internet grants to the citizen.

b) Cybercrimes against property

The second category of Cyber-crimes is that of Cybercrimes against all forms of property. These crimes include computer vandalism (destruction of others' property), transmission of harmful programmes.

A Mumbai-based upstart engineering company lost a say and much money in the business when the rival company, an industry major, stole the technical database from their computers with the help of a corporate cyberspy.

c) Cybercrimes against government

The third category of Cyber-crimes relate to Cybercrimes against Government. Cyberterrorism is one distinct kind of crime in this category. The growth of internet has shown that the medium of Cyberspace is being used by individuals and groups to threaten the international governments as also to terrorise the citizens of a country. This crime manifests itself into terrorism when an individual "cracks" into a government or military maintained website.
In a report of expressindia.com, it was said that internet was becoming a boon for the terrorist organisations. According to Mr. A.K. Gupta, Deputy Director (Co-ordination), CBI, terrorist outfits are increasingly using internet to communicate and move funds. "Lashker-e-Toiba is collecting contributions online from its sympathisers all over the world. During the investigation of the Red Fort shootout in Dec. 2000, the accused Ashfaq Ahmed of this terrorist group revealed that the militants are making extensive use of the internet to communicate with the operatives and the sympathisers and also using the medium for intra-bank transfer of funds".

Cracking is amongst the gravest Cyber-crimes known till date. It is a dreadful feeling to know that a stranger has broken into your computer systems without your knowledge and consent and has tampered with precious confidential data and information.

Coupled with this the actuality is that no computer system in the world is cracking proof. It is unanimously agreed that any and every system in the world can be cracked. The recent denial of service attacks seen over the popular commercial sites like E-bay, Yahoo, Amazon and others are a new category of Cyber-crimes which are slowly emerging as being extremely dangerous.
"Any criminal activity that uses a computer either as an instrumentality, target or a means for perpetuating further crimes comes within the ambit of cyber crime."
- Pavan Duggal,Supreme Court advocate and cyber law expert



http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02257/more.html

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

VIRUSES

Cute virus in yellow..

I found a very interesting articles when i try my very best to search through development of cyber crimes..yeah!! finally, i come across an article which entitled ' Where in the world do viruses comes from?' This article mainly contribute the international development of cyber crimes..Let's read through together..:-)
Where in the World do Viruses Come From?
Computerworld Singapore
Saturday, September 05, 2009 11:23 AM PDT
The U.S. and Brazil continued their output of spam and viruses through August, although levels have dropped slightly since July, according to security vendor Network Box. An analysis of Internet threats by Network Box in August 2009 shows that the volume of malware, which peaked in July (when volumes increased by 300 per cent), are down again at levels seen in June (around four viruses per customer, per hour). Spam is also down slightly, averaging around 90 spam e-mails per customer, per hour (from a peak of around 120 in May). The U.S. continues to dominate as the main source of the world's viruses, producing 15.9 per cent of all viruses. It is followed closely by Brazil, which produces 14.5 per cent (similar levels to last month's 14.1 per cent). Brazil continues to be the biggest source of spam, producing 11.6 per cent of all spam, followed by the US at 8.6 per cent and South Korea at 7.2 per cent.
South Korea remains the biggest source of intrusion attacks, at 17.3 per cent.
Phishing attacks also remain high, at 33 per cent of all viruses. This is down slightly from last month's 36.2 per cent, but still significantly higher than in June, when phishing attacks made up just five per cent of all viruses.


From the article, we can see that U.S is the country that become the main contributor of the viruses..what is the reason behind all this? can we think together? any comments friend?

posted by Bee Ling



Sunday, September 27, 2009

Denial of service attack??

After such a long holiday, our group come back again..hehe..today, we would like to talk about denial of service attack. What is denial of service attack? Denial of service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. For your information, denial of service attack is a type of cyber crime.


A Denial of service attack can be perpetrated in a number of ways. The five basic types of attack are:
1. Consumption of computational resources, such as bandwidth, disk space, or processor time

2. Disruption of configuration information, such as routing information.

3. Disruption of state information, such as unsolicited resetting of TCP sessions.

4. Disruption of physical network components.

5. Obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.


In the Police and Justice Act 2006, the United Kingdom specifically outlawed denial-of-service attacks and set a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The question arise, how about the case happens in Malaysia? any suggestion? :-)


posted by Bee Ling