Question

• Specify case examples and discussion on cybercrime that has impacted companies/corporations and the outcome. What did the company/corporation do to prevent itself from future incidents from occurring?
• Can you identify any incidents that were never released to the public until maybe at a later time or never until revealed?

Answer 1

Cybercrime is an activity that takes place illegally when an attacker or an intruder gets access to confidential information of an organisation.

For example,

In the month of September, 2000, a private hacker got access to confidentials credit card information of around 15000 customers of the Western Union Bank of First Data Corp.

This attack had led to leaking of confidential bank account details private to every customer of that bank.

Reason: The hacker gained illegal access to the bank's system during a routine maintenance check, when one of the employees had left the confidential files unlocked and unprotected. Such an event led to an easy target for the hacker to take advantage of.

After the attack, the bank informed the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) of the attack and an invertigation took place.

The company started to use password protection schemes for all the files even during maintenence checks.

Added extra layers of security to confidential information. Improved firewall systems so that it is almost impossible for an intruder to break into the system.