Question

Forensic accountants and fraud examiners need to understand the difference between computer crime and computer fraud. They need to articulate whether the computer was the target of the crime or a tool used in committing the crime. Computer fraud is prosecuted under a fraud statute, such as wire fraud; while computer crime is prosecuted under the computer fraud and abuse act.

Discussion topic 2: Cyber Attacks

Define the term hacking.

How might a computer hacker illegally gain access to a computer and manipulate data?

What are computer viruses and how do they enter computer systems? What kind of harm can they do to a company’s computer system?

Give an example of a computer virus.

Answer 1

Solution:-

Define the term hacking:-

Breaking into computer systems, such as telecommunication systems, by determining the vulnerabilities of various hardware and software components and using technology to systematically "guess" the authorized user's access codes for the purpose of gaining unauthorized access to computer systems and the information contained therein.

How might a computer hacker illegally gain access to a computer and manipulate data:-

Hackers generally use various "rogue" software applications to penetrate a system. Sometimes hackers secretly incorporate unsuspecting computer owners into their schemes by installing programs that are downloaded via an e-mail or by visiting a website. These programs operate in the background of the infected computer and can disable security settings and capture information that is then sent back to the hacker.

The most common way is to use someone else's user name and password, or generate without authorization a system-acceptable user name and password. Other ways may include, trojan horse, trap doors, salamic techniques, logic bombs, etc.

What are computer viruses and how do they enter computer systems? What kind of harm can they do to a company’s computer system:-

Viruses are hidden computer programs that use computer resources or other computer activities in such a way as to shut down or slow it down significantly. Computer viruses typically use the infected computer's resources to replicate itself and spread the infection to other systems on networks or through the internet via e-mail, text messages, or other electronic medium.

Give an example of a computer virus

Macro Virus - a macro is an instruction that automatically carries out program commands.

Application Software Viruses - these type of viruses copy their virus code to a program file and modify the program so the virus code gets executed first.

Network Viruses - these generally are developed to attack the file servers. The boot sector and partition table viruses infect the boot operation of the file server.

Worms - a worm is a self-replicating program which resides as a file on a system, executes an autonomous process, and deliberately moves from system to system. It looks fr other nodes on the networks, copies itself to them, and causes the self-copy to execute on other nodes.