02 Mar Understanding CyberCrime
What is cybercrime and how does it work?
Cybercrime is a lucrative trade and it’s growing. Criminals have identified where the money is and, as a result, cybercrime is quickly becoming a major threat. Millions of dollars are lost every year. Because these criminals continue to refine and fine-tune each element of the cybercrime supply chain, users must be educated and alert. The more we know about cybercrime, the better equipped we will be to defend against it; and the best way to do that is to understand who the typical perpetrators are, what motivates them and what methods they use to perpetrate their crimes.
The first generation of cybercriminals was motivated by notoriety, ego or curiosity. Their attacks were meant to be disruptive and make their presence known by causing indiscriminate damage to any vulnerable computer on the Internet.
The realization that hacking could easily be used for monetary gain changed that. Cybercriminals matured, recognizing the value of working together for ill-gotten gains while setting their sights on larger, more lucrative targets.
Cybercriminals are no longer isolated amateurs.
Today, a well-funded, well-organized, highly-sophisticated underground economy provides the malware to enable hackers, sometimes with nominal programming skills, to commit their crimes and sell to the highest bidder the financial information or intellectual property they’ve stolen from individuals, companies or governments.
Most people have no idea just how involved the underground black market for stolen information is. Picture an e-bay type environment with buyers and sellers who have the ability to rate each other and leave feedback about transactions. Only this online hot spot is a breeding ground for illegal activity. Thieves can even purchase ad spaces or web banners advertising their goods.
In order to sell on the online black market sites, a person must allow the administrators to sample his or her goods so that they know he or she is legitimate. Once thieves are allowed to begin posting in open forums, they will connect with others who are buying or selling what they need.
After a connection is made in a forum, thieves usually move onto a smaller stage via an instant messaging site that doesn’t require registration or an email address in order to chat. Here they can privately work out the details of their crime.
How can my information be compromised?
The most common way to steal confidential information is by embedding spyware programs on computers. These programs log and track keystrokes and capture user names, passwords and PINs and send the information to hackers who sell it on the black market. But there are many other ways that information is compromised.
In short, the massive amount of personal information online coupled with the lack of user knowledge of how to secure this data makes it easy for cybercriminals. They use a variety of technologies to obtain your information including password crackers, keyloggers, malware, and a variety of social engineering techniques.
For example, targeted phishing attacks, not just through email, but through technologies like Facebook and Twitter are extremely effective because people tend to let their guard down on social media sites. To avoid serious financial consequences, users must put forth considerable effort into educating themselves on how to spot and stop the attacks.
How can I protect myself from cybercrime?
Follow these guidelines to help you ensure that your information remains safe.
- Keep your firewall turned on. A firewall helps protect your computer from hackers who might try to gain access to crash it, delete information, or even steal passwords or other sensitive information.
- Install or update both anti-virus and anti-malware software. You need both to prevent malicious software programs from embedding themselves on your computer. Set them to update automatically.
- Install or update your antispyware technology. Some spyware collects information about you without your consent; others produce unwanted pop-up ads on your web browser.
- Keep your operating system up to date. Updates are needed to fix security holes.
- Be careful what you download. Careless downloading documents, images and apps can beat even the most vigilant anti-virus/ anti-malware software.
- Close your browser when you’re done working. Delete the cache, history and passwords each time. Also, turn off your computer. Turning the computer off effectively severs an attacker’s connection.
- Monitor your credit. Since you can’t protect information that’s in the hands of myriad of organizations, you need to monitor your credit reports. For even more protection, you might consider a credit monitoring service that will alert you when there’s an entry in your credit file.
- Ignore scareware. Scareware pop-ups may look like actual warnings from your system, but they’re not. Made to appear authentic, they often deliver malicious payloads. Close them with the “X” button.
- Review your bank and credit card statements. It’s one of the easiest ways to notice if something is wrong.
- Choose strong passwords. And don’t use the password you use for online banking anywhere else. Change your most critical passwords every 90 days.
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