Cyber Crime and cyber security
Omkar Dattatray
While science and technology is fruitful for the society and mankind ,it has given rise to unwanted and more dangerous and lethal cyber crime in the field of crime world .However cyber crime as well as its remedy cyber security ,both of these are of relatively recent origin .The cyber crime is on an alarming rise in the country and therefore there is urgent and great need to combat cyber crime by using cyber security apparatus and techniques and therefore cyber security techniques and appliances should be used to fight the growing cyber crime in the country and save the economy ,politics and even the governmental functioning and institutions from the menace and threat of cyber crime .It is in the fitness of things to define cyber crime and know its meaning in the present day internet and online world .The crime that involves and uses computer devices and internet is known as cyber crime .Cyber crime can be committed against an individual or a group .It can also be committed against a government department and private organizations .It may be intended to harm some ones reputation ,physical and even give mental harm .Cyber crime can cause direct harm or indirect harm to whoever the victim is .However the largest threat of cyber crime is on financial security of an individual as well as the government .Cyber crime can cause loss of billions of USD every year .We should throw light on the major types of cyber crime.1-Hacking is one of the main types of the cyber crime .It is an illegal practice by which a hacker breaches the computers security system of someone for personal interest.2-Unwanted mass surveillance is another main type of cyber crime .Mass surveillance means surveillance of a substantial fraction of a group of people by the authority especially for the security purpose but if someone does it for personal interest ,it is considered as cyber crime.3- Child pornography is also one of the types of cyber crime .It is one of the most heinous crimes that is brazenly practiced across the world .Children are sexually abused and videos are being made and uploaded on the internet.4-Child grooming is also one of the main types of cyber crime .It is the practice of establishing an emotional connection with a child especially for the purpose of child-trafficking and child prostitution.5-Copyright infringement is caused when someone infringes someone’s protected copyright without permission and publishes that with his own name is known as copyright infringement.6-Money laundering is also one of the types of cyber crime .It is illegal possession of money by an individual or an organization .Money laundering involves transfers of money through foreign banks and /or through legitimate business .In other words ,it is the practice of transforming illegitimately earned money into legitimate financial system.6-Cyber extortion is when a hacker hacks someone’s email server ,or computer system and demands money to reinstate the system 7-Cyber terrorism is the main type of cyber crime and it is mainly resorted to by the anti social and anti national elements .Normally ,when someone hacks government’s security system or intimidates government or such a big organization to advance his political or social objectives by invading the security system through computer network it is called cyber terrorism .Cyber security is the answer for cyber crimes and the governments and private entities should focus their attention towards providing cyber security to guard against cyber crime .Cyber security is a potential activity by which information and other communication systems are protected from and /or defended .Cyber security is the practice of defending computers ,networks ,servers ,mobile devices electronic systems ,and data from malicious attacks .It is also known as information technology security services and electronic information security .The term applies in a Varity of contexts from business to mobile computing and can be divided into few common categories .These are ,Network Security ,Application security ,Information security ,Operational security .There is great need for using and applying cyber security systems to fight the cyber crime which is threatening the mankind today and so governments and ,its security agencies and the private security agencies should apply cyber security to secure the governmental institutions and private entities and organizations against the cyber crime .The global cyber threat continues to evolve at a rapid pace with rising number of data breaches each year .A report by Risk Based Security revealed that a shocking 7.9 billion records have been exposed by data breaches in the first nine months of 2019 alone .This figure is more than double -112% the number of records exposed in the same period in 2018.Medical,retailers and public entities experienced the most breaches with malicious criminals responsible for most incidents .Some of these sectors are more appealing to cyber criminals because they collect financial and medicinal data but all businesses that use networks can be targeted for customer data ,corporate espionages ,or customer attacks .With the scale of cyber threat set continue to rise ,global spending on cyber security solutions is naturally increasing .In US ,the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has created a cyber security framework .To combat proliferation of malicious code and aid in early detection ,the framework recommends continuous ,real time monitoring of all electronic resources .In fact cyber security is a well designed technique to protect computers ,networks ,different programs ,personal data etc from unauthorized access .All sorts of data whether it is government ,corporate or personal need high security ,however ,some data which belongs to the government defense system ,banks ,defense research and development organization etc are highly confidential and even small amount of negligence to these data may cause great damage to the whole nation .In short cyber crime has created big threat to the computer and internet system and to network and to the government and private entities and therefore the cyber security should be applied to guard against the malicious attacks of cyber crime on the government ,economy ,financial system and private corporate organizations .There is thus the great need to put in use techniques of cyber security to combat the rising cyber crime in the country.
(The author is a columnist,social and KP activist).