সোমবার, ৮ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Cyber Law


Cyber Law

[ From chapter-23 of the book "Information Technology in Banking" written by Abul Kashem Md. Shirin and Nusrat Tamanna Prianka and published by Institute of Bankers, Bangladesh (IBB) ]
1.         What is Cyber Law?

In Simple way we can say that cyber crime is unlawful acts wherein the computer is either a tool or a target or both

Cyber crimes can involve criminal activities that are traditional in nature, such as theft, fraud, forgery, defamation and mischief, all of which are subject to the Bangladesh Penal Code. The abuse of computers has also given birth to a gamut of new age crimes that are addressed by the Information and Communication Technology Act, 2006 (ICT Act-2006).

2.         Cyber Crime Categories:

We can categorize Cyber crimes in two ways:

a)         The Computer as a Target: using a computer to attack other computers e.g. Hacking, Virus/Worm attacks, DOS attack etc.

b)         The computer as a weapon: using a computer to commit real world crimes e.g. Cyber Terrorism, IPR violations, Credit card frauds, EFT frauds, Pornography etc.

Cyber Crime regulated by Cyber Laws or Internet Laws.

3.         Cyber Crimes Activities:

Technological advancements have created new possibilities for criminal activity, in particular the criminal misuse of information technologies for conducting cyber crimes such as:

3.1.      Unauthorized access & Hacking:

Access means gaining entry into, instructing or communicating with the logical, arithmetical, or memory function resources of a computer, computer system or computer network.

Unauthorized access would therefore mean any kind of access without the permission of either the rightful owner or the person in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network.

Every act committed towards breaking into a computer and/or network is hacking. Hackers write or use ready-made computer programs to attack the target computer. They possess the desire to destruct and they get the kick out of such destruction. Some hackers hack for personal monetary gains, such as to stealing the credit card information, transferring money from various bank accounts to their own account followed by withdrawal of money.

By hacking web server taking control on another persons website called as web hijacking

3.2.      Trojan Attack:

The program that acts like something useful but do the things that are quiet damping. The programs of this kind are called as Trojans. The name Trojan Horse is a popular.

Trojans come in two parts, a Client part and a Server part. When the victim (unknowingly) runs the server on its machine, the attacker will then use the Client to connect to the Server and start using the trojan.

TCP/IP protocol is the usual protocol type used for communications, but some functions of the trojans use the UDP protocol as well.

3.3.      Virus and Worm attack:

A program that has capability to infect other programs and make copies of itself and spread into other programs is called virus.

Programs that multiply like viruses but spread from computer to computer are called as worms.

3.4.      E-mail related crimes:

a. Email spoofing

Email spoofing refers to email that appears to have been originated from one source when it was actually sent from another source.

b. Email Spamming

Email "spamming" refers to sending email to thousands and thousands of users - similar to a chain letter.

c. Sending malicious codes through email

E-mails are used to send viruses, Trojans etc through emails as an attachment or by sending a link of website which on visiting downloads malicious code.

d. Email bombing

E-mail "bombing" is characterized by abusers repeatedly sending an identical email message to a particular address.

e. Sending threatening emails

f. Defamatory emails

g. Email frauds

3.5.      Denial of Service (DoS) attacks:

Flooding a computer resource with more requests than it can handle. This causes the resource to crash thereby denying access of service to authorized users.

3.6.      Pornography:

This would include pornographic websites; pornographic material produced using computers and use of internet to download and transmit pornographic videos, pictures, photos, writings etc.

Adult entertainment is largest industry on internet. There are more than 420 million individual pornographic webpages today.

3.7.      Forgery:

Counterfeit currency notes, postage and revenue stamps, mark sheets etc can be forged using sophisticated computers, printers and scanners.

Also impersonate another person is considered forgery.

3.8.      IPR Violations:

These include software piracy, copyright infringement, trademarks violations, theft of computer source code, patent violations etc.

Domain names are also trademarks and protected by ICANN’s domain dispute resolution policy and also under trademark laws.

Cyber Squatters registers domain name identical to popular service provider’s domain so as to attract their users and get benefit from it.

3.9.      Cyber Terrorism:

Targeted attacks on military installations, power plants, air traffic control, banks, trail traffic control, telecommunication networks are the most likely targets. Others like police, medical, fire and rescue systems etc.

Cyber terrorism is an attractive option for modern terrorists for several reasons.

1.   It is cheaper than traditional terrorist methods.
2.   Cyber terrorism is more anonymous than traditional terrorist methods.
3.   The variety and number of targets are enormous.
4.   Cyber terrorism can be conducted remotely, a feature that is especially appealing to terrorists.
5.   Cyber terrorism has the potential to affect directly a larger number of people.

3.10.    Banking/Credit card Related crimes:-

In the corporate world, Internet hackers are continually looking for opportunities to compromise a company’s security in order to gain access to confidential banking and financial information.

Use of stolen card information or fake credit/debit cards is common.

Bank employee can grab money using programs to deduct small amount of money from all customer accounts and adding it to own account also called as salami.

3.11.    E-commerce/ Investment Frauds:

Sales and Investment frauds is an offering that uses false or fraudulent claims to solicit investments or loans, or that provides for the purchase, use, or trade of forged or counterfeit securities.

Merchandise or services that were purchased or contracted by individuals online are never delivered.

The fraud attributable to the misrepresentation of a product advertised for sale through an Internet auction site or the non-delivery of products purchased through an Internet auction site.

Investors are enticed to invest in this fraudulent scheme by the promises of abnormally high profits.

3.12.    Sale of illegal articles:

This would include trade of narcotics, weapons and wildlife etc., by posting information on websites, auction websites, and bulletin boards or simply by using email communication.

3.13.    Online gambling:

There are millions of websites hosted on servers abroad, that offer online gambling. In fact, it is believed that many of these websites are actually fronts for money laundering.

3.14.    Defamation:

Defamation can be understood as the intentional infringement of another person's right to his good name.

Cyber Defamation occurs when defamation takes place with the help of computers and / or the Internet. E.g. someone publishes defamatory matter about someone on a website or sends e-mails containing defamatory information to all of that person's friends. Information posted to a bulletin board can be accessed by anyone. Cyber defamation is also called as Cyber smearing.

3.15.    Identity Theft:

Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in countries like America.

Identity theft occurs when someone appropriates another's personal information without their knowledge to commit theft or fraud.

Identity theft is a vehicle for perpetrating other types of fraud schemes.

3.16.    Data diddling:

Data diddling involves changing data prior or during input into a computer.

In other words, information is changed from the way it should be entered by a person typing in the data, a virus that changes data, the programmer of the database or application, or anyone else involved in the process of having information stored in a computer file.

It also includes automatic changing the financial information for some time before processing and then restoring original information.

3.17.    Theft of Internet Hours:

Unauthorized use of Internet hours paid for by another person.

By gaining access to an organization’s telephone switchboard (PBX) individuals or criminal organizations can obtain access to dial-in/dial-out circuits and then make their own calls or sell call time to third parties.

Additional forms of service theft include capturing 'calling card' details and on-selling calls charged to the calling card account, and counterfeiting or illicit reprogramming of stored value telephone cards.

3.18.    Theft of computer system (Hardware):

This type of offence involves the theft of a computer, some part(s) of a computer or a peripheral attached to the computer.

3.19.    Physically damaging a computer system:

Physically damaging a computer or its peripherals either by shock, fire or excess electric supply etc.

3.20.    Breach of Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy

Privacy refers to the right of an individual/s to determine when, how and to what extent his or her personal data will be shared with others.

Breach of privacy means unauthorized use or distribution or disclosure of personal information like medical records, sexual preferences, financial status etc.

Confidentiality

It means non disclosure of information to unauthorized or unwanted persons.

In addition to Personal information some other type of information which useful for business and leakage of such information to other persons may cause damage to business or person, such information should be protected.

Generally for protecting secrecy of such information, parties while sharing information forms an agreement about he procedure of handling of information and to not to disclose such information to third parties or use it in such a way that it will be disclosed to third parties.

Many times party or their employees leak such valuable information for monitory gains and causes breach of contract of confidentiality.

Special techniques such as Social Engineering are commonly used to obtain confidential information.

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