Cybercrimes
is emerging as serious threat to the word of computer technologies, government
authorities, police and national intelligence agencies are acting towards the
issue closely. Different strategies are put into action trying to combat the
problem. Most organizations in recent days have taken a considerable decision to
try and educate their employees and officials about the effects of cybercrimes
and the importance of cyber security.
Cyber
security is just a terminology composed of two words “cyber” and “security” digesting
from the English dictionary cyber simply means being connected either virtually
or physically. Given that we realize cyber security is just the security which
is provided to you when you are connected. The questions is when you are
connected to what, to the cyber world wither in an internet, office network or
any other kind of network. The crimes which are executed when you are connected
to the cyber world are what we call the cybercrimes. These crimes include phishing, illegal hacking, Vishing, Cyber stalking, botnet and others.
Actually Phishing It is among the internet fraud involving getting financial
information illegally online through spam email pretending to be from bank or
institution or someone can create a dumb site and request you for your bank
accounts credentials. Most of the time they will request for your accounts
password or account number and tell you they want to verify your account.
Actually the main intention is to use your credentials for illegal activities. In
Tanzania recently most of the people have been victims of Phishing but through mobile phones through e-money transfers. Most
of the people have been tricked to send their passwords to the cybercriminals
who in turn stole money from their accounts. Recently there was a story of guy
from a local bank who used to access his bank account through mobile was
reported that all his money was stolen from his bank account after receiving a
SMS message telling him you are the winner of certain stuffs and requires him
to send his credentials through his phone which in turn allowed the criminals
to access his accounts using their phone.
We have hacking, hacking is not a crime unless is done without a prior
notice to the user of the account or records. Sometimes people hack their own
network to check for any loop holes which might provide the rooms of attack
from the cyber -criminals. Large companies these days’ higher hackers to hack
into their systems and networks so that they can check or discover any
vulnerability in their security systems. Hacking is a career also there are
several certification in ethical hacking provided by different organization everywhere
in the world. Sometimes is not necessarily to get in and still some data from
the server or database the action itself of breaking into someone else online
private data without the user’s awareness is considered to be a crime and for
country with strong cyber laws is punishable by law.
Vishing,
is the criminal practice of using social engineering voice over IP (VoIP)
to access to private personal information from the public for the purpose of
financial reward. The term is the combination of voice and phishing. Phishing is to request
confidential information over the Internet under false pretenses in order to
fraudulently obtain credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal data.
This is when is used in technology don’t confuse with its normal usage. Social
engineering is the use of communication skills and quick wits in order to
turn a scenario into a favorable situation. You have seen it the movies were by
someone comes and try to talk down a another person smartly until I got a
sensitive information needed can either be the name of the boss, ID number or
password of some files, that is social engineering. VoIP is a protocol for transmitting
the human voice in digital form over the Internet or other networks as an audio
stream, instead of using traditional telephone lines. When the two combines
VoIP and Phishing is when we have vishing.
Cyber
stalking basically is an act of online stalking like a real world stalkers
they always disturb you and want to interact with you without your prior
concern. The activities involve online harassment and abuse. It involves threatening behaviors or objects which disturbs the user of the internet. Most of
the time we don’t know that we are committing
this crime, posting pictures into someone’s social networking walls tagging them
into offensive stuffs or even emailing them weird messages is considered to be
cyber stalking. You are removing the right of privacy and freedom to enjoy the internet
of another user.
Botnet is a collection of compromised computers, each of which is known as a 'bot', connected to the Internet.
When a computer is compromised by an attacker, there is often code
within the malware that commands it to become part of a botnet. The
"botmaster" or "bot herder" controls these compromised computers via
standards-based network protocols such as IRC and http this id from the Wikipedia explanation, the easy explanation is that the Bot - Net is the Bot network a compromised network in which the owner of the network has no longer power over it since it is being controlled by someone from outside or using another system which have already taken the control called botmaster. This most of the time is done by hackers for ransom to the big companies or organizations.
There are so many other cyber-crimes
out there this is just an introduction, before you use the internet we expect
you to know your rights and responsibilities. Users of technology have the
obligation to make the cyber space the most secure space for someone to use and
navigate. The internet is no longer safe that is the reality, always be careful
with what you give to the internet because once you take it out there you can
get it back. Wither is the photos with your family or anything else. Develop
attitude of changing your passwords after some time pass and always don’t give
your personal details to any site or person online. For more details about
cyber security you can read my paper from slide-share.
Am hoping to prepare free seminar on cyber- security soon enough. Stay safe
play safely online.
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