In recent years information security and privacy have come to be topics of high importance with rapid technological advancements. Technology has provided vast areas of opportunities, but these have also brought along unprecedented threats. Since the “Morris” worm in the 1980’s cyber threat has grown from isolated incidents to high profile attacks on major government and private organizations. Cyber threats can be classified broadly into three distinct areas – Cyber crime – intentional attacks carried out by individuals or groups of individuals with specific objectives of acquiring money, data or causing disruption. Cyber war – an attack conducted by a nation against another nation with the objective to cause disruption or obtain …show more content…
Two popular and large-scale self-propagating worms in 2001 are Code Red and NIMDA. The motivation for the attackers of both these worms were to gain notoriety and fame. Code Red exploited buffer overflow vulnerability in the IIS server of Microsoft. NIMDA on the other hand used multiple propagation techniques such as email, network sharing, exploiting directory traversal vulnerabilities of Microsoft IIS server. These widespread attacks led to the adoption of Intrusion detection systems. 3. Monetary benefit The third phase began around 2004 with the social engineering technique of phishing. The attacks attempted the victims to reveal passwords, identity information and payment card details which would then be used to extract money. 4. Threat and destruction The phase began in 2007/08 with the distributed denial of service attacks launched against Georgia and Estonia. The significant attack in this phase was in 2010 with the Stuxnet, the first malware that was able to compromise industrial control systems. This was significant because it showed that cyber threats were now not limited to servers, software, data and continuity but affected safety as well. Around this same time started the Advanced Persistent Threats. 5. Future Cyber-attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and varied targeting various high profile multinational companies. The target until now has been financial information and other critical
* • Cyber Crimes: Any act directed against computers or that uses computers as an instrumentality of a crime.
Cyber-security demands are ever increasing in the field of Information Technology with the globalization of the internet. Disruptions due to cyber-attacks are affecting the economy, costing companies billions of dollars each year in lost revenue. To counter this problem
Cyber security, also referred to as information technology security, focuses on protecting computers, networks, software programs and data from unintended or unauthorized access, change or destruction. Post 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, the United States grows its endeavors to repulse cyberattacks, U.S. corporate organizations and the government agencies wind up in strife over how to adjust to new methods of security and privacy. The current state of security measure protocols and privacy policies placed by the US government in cyberspace raises concerns for the 99%. This is due to the recent cyber-attacks on American corporate organization systems and government alike, where their digital information and network infrastructures within the systems were compromised, and personal data was hacked and stolen.
Cyberterrorism is a critical threat and is the most definitive characteristic of the U.S. contemporary security environment. For years, the American people have been victimized by cyber-attacks by having their personal information, emails, credit card, and banking information stolen by an invisible enemy named cyberterrorism. These types of attacks seem insignificant however; they are small examples of the vulnerabilities that our cyber world is experiencing. Our vulnerabilities are leaving our public officials in significant danger from cyber-attacks, as they are vulnerable to such things as the release of personal information and home addresses.
Times have changed what was known as organized crime has been replaced by Cybercrimes (Heists: Cybercrimes with Ben Hammersley). Cybercrimes have risen dramatically in recent years and have become a major issue the United States and company’s face today jeopardizing as well as threatening the critical infrastructure of America (Cyberwar Threat, 2005). Sadly, the status quo of cyber security is very unstable with the advancements and growth which has put most individuals and businesses into an enormous threat (Agustina, 2015).
Cyber-terrorism is the convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. It is generally understood to mean unlawful attacks and threats of attack against computers, networks, and the information stored therein when done to intimidate or coerce a government or its people in furtherance of political or social objectives.
When considering the technological advances over the past 50 years, the Internet has undoubtedly had the greatest impact on everyday life of developed economies and its citizens. The world has become smaller, societies interconnected, and the pace of global integration dramatically increased since the introduction of the Internet. As people and information become increasingly integrated around the world, physical borders between nations are no longer sufficient to restrict access to information and sensitive data. This integrated world allows for malicious cyber actors to advance strategic
Persons: Cyber Crime against person can be conducted in many ways as in today’s world all the personal information is available on internet and one can use this against a person.
Cyber security is a major concern for every department, business, and citizen of the United States because technology impacts every aspect of our daily lives. The more we use technology the more complacent, we get with the information that is stored within our cyber networks. The more complacent, we get, the more vulnerable we become to cyber-attacks because we fail to update the mechanisms that safeguard our information. Breaches to security networks are detrimental to personal, economic, and national security information. Many countries, like Russia, China, Israel, France, and the United Kingdom, now have the abilities and technology to launch cyber-attacks on the United States. In the last five years there have been several attacks on cyber systems to gain access to information maintained by major businesses and the United States Government. Cyber-attacks cause serious harm to the United States’ economy, community, and the safety, so we need to build stronger cyber security mechanisms. Based on my theoretical analysis, I recommend the following:
Most nations today fear terror attacks that include bombing use of reinforcements like machines guns and other firearms. This is because terror attacks most of the times leave many people dead and others disabled while others are left without families. However, there is another attack today in many nations that can be destructive like a terror attack and this is the cyber-attack and threats. Cyber-attacks can be responsible for large mass destructions by making all systems connected to cyber networks fail to work (Rhodes 20). An example is the Morris worm that affected the world cyber infrastructures and caused them to slow down to a position of being impractical. Therefore, as a result of these cyber-attacks resources are being established and designed to help counter the attacks.
According to Furnell and Warren (1999), Evidence suggests that technology is growingly seen as a potential tool for terrorist organizations and the widespread use of information technology by terrorist groups and organizations has led to the birth of a new class of menace termed “Cyberterrorism”. Cyberterrorism could be used in many diverse ways. Sometimes, a country’s pivotal infrastructures could be shut down and harmed using computer network and tools. There have been impediments in trying to give a clear and concise definition to the term “cyberterrorism”. But Denning (2007) which supersedes Denning (2000) gives an unambiguous definition to cyberterrorism:
By the year of 2016, investments in online security are expected to reach $86bn (Contu et al, 2012). Although this might seem a large sum of money, it is considered necessary since there is an increase in online risks from all over the world. Professional hackers develop malware on a global scale and on a 24/7 basis. Hackers have five objectives when spreading malware over the Internet: to infect/distribute, to steal, to persist, to control and for intelligence (Morris, 2010).
Governments, organizations and companies co-operate to secure cyber space. In fact, the prevention of cyber criminal activities is the most critical aspect in the fight against cyber crime. It’s mainly based on the concepts of awareness and information sharing. A proper security posture is the best defence against cyber crime (Paganini, Perluigi, 2014)
Cyber crime is defined as any crime that involves a computer and network. Individuals, businesses and government agencies around the world constantly face threats to their medical information, consumer data, as well as company trade information and military decisions. Cyber security specialists are professionals that are specifically trained to protect individuals and organizations from cyber crime, hackers and scammers.
Cyber Security also called computer security and IT security, is the assurance of data from theft or any harm to the gadget, the product and information stored on hardware. It incorporates controlling physical access to the equipment and additionally ensuring against code or data injection or via network access.