Question

Search online to find an incident of a cybercrime (not included in the readings). Please describe the event. What are the lessons learned? How can these lessons be implemented in the United States? Write a 1 to 2 page paper answering these questions.

Answer 1

Cybercrime is a crime originated from computer using internet and network by breaking basic security an individual's/business' computer may have. This crime is handled by organized professionals.

The cybercriminals creates malware which is a small software containing computer viruses to gain partial or complete access of someone’s computer once connected to internet. It not only impacts an individual but also attacks business in a professional manner. Various smart devices like ipad, smart phones are very popular these days. Cybercriminals attack these devices as well. Apart from very common theft using malwares, criminals use many other tricks to lure individual, various businesses. Identify theft is one the major crime in the USA. Below are some commonly used cybercrimes:

• Phishing: fraudulent emails/messages having links that can steal your personal information.
• Pharming: uses malware to route to fake websites and providing credentials will expose indivisual to hacker’s world.
• Keylogging: using key type recoding, a certain type of malwares steal personal information.
• Sniffing: this happened when someone is connected to unsecured wifi. Cybercrooks can gain access to your device easily by this hacking process.
• Cyberbullying: this is any type of online harassment when hackers get access to you personal data.

To make sure you are not victim of cyber-crime, some basic precautions need to be taken as below:

1. Make sure the device has a newly updated antivirus all the time.
2. Do not open any links which may not relevant to you and looks sketchy. Specially bank, involving personal information as SSN, password etc.
3. Be careful when downloading anything from internet.
4. Never use unencrypted, unsecured public wifi
5. Passwords should be very strong, avoid dictionary word, date of birth and anything that can be guessed from some personal information.
6. Should not fill up online surveys without knowing if it is legit.
7. Use common sense, anything free in internet may be a trap.    

Sometimes it is very tough to catch a cybercriminal as they are very organized and might be operating from any part of the globe, sometimes state sponsored.

Ransomware is one of the worst organized cyber-attack happened in recent time. It was targeted towards businesses and made a havoc loss. It is an attack where your sensitive data is encrypted and decryption is provided based on ransom.

The FBI policy restricts paying a ransom in response to a ransomware attack as it has been noticed that even after paying the ransom, hackers never provided decryption keys. Paying a ransom also encourages this crime. FBI has a setup a separate department to handle cyber crimes. In US, every state has different law to handle cyber-crimes. Sentences are based on amount of damage made but sometimes it is very tough to find out the severity. . In general, if the severity is high, it is considered as felony.

One challenge the legal system faces is fast evolving technological advancement and its curse on new users who are not so internet-educated and can be used as victims easily.