Growing Cyber Crimes

With the arrival of internet and social media the world has gone through a sea change in defining life, relations and interaction at the click of mouse. The convergence of ideas, new concepts and technological inventions have bonded the humanity together encompassing class and regions . It has tremendously changed the global knowledge scenario by harmonizing the innumerable knowledge islands spread and scattered across the length and breadth of the globe into one single ocean of knowledge. The seamless end-to-end flow of information opened the floodgates of power of knowledge  giving rise to unique scientific and technological developments .Thanks to workaholic Mr. Internet which has inexhaustible work energy  and is round the clock available in  the  service of humanity, the ever expanding horizon of philosophy, science, technology, religion and current developments are rapidly changing  the lives of billions  of  people.

However, anything that has been gifted as multifaceted boon to all of us has always carried along with itself the fear of its misuse. With ambitions dominating our social and economic spheres the vested interests prone to the commission of activities of criminal nature find the technology of internet as the most lucrative one to fulfil their unjust desires and aspirations. They are misled and misguided by none other than their own treasure of knowledge which they apply what we can call subtle and through their insidious technological tricks to get their long cherished dreams. More often they cross all limits of the decency and end up as dreaded cyber criminals.

Europol’s 2016 Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) expresses concern over the growing trend of cyber criminal economy. The trend not only targets our increasingly Internet-enabled lives but also low levels of digital hygiene. The report identifies following cyber crime trends and makes forward- looking recommendations to cope with the challenge.

• The digital underground crime are the crimes done in the Crime-as-a-Service model whereby organized crime groups establishes connection with specialist providers of cyber crime tools and services to carry out their illegal activities .
• Ransom ware and banking Trojans are still the top malware threats to security posing a grave challenge to cyber world.
• The criminal use of data is one of the areas in cyber technology which provide for easy avenue for misuse and manipulation of data by cyber-criminals. Since by committing fraud with regard to particular piece of information or data immediate financial gains are procured; cyber criminals try every tactic to acquire personal data. The criminal use of data is increasing day by day simply because more complex crimes in nature of complex fraud such as extortion or ransom through encrypted information, which is otherwise not possible, are committed by having access to data.
• Scheming and malware attacks have emerged as credible threats to ATMs network and banking system as Organized crime groups are inventing new fraud techniques which may compromise payments involving contactless cards.
• The prevalence of anonymous payment system in the existing end-to-end encrypted platforms for sharing media have now made online child sexual abuse through live streaming an easy affair.
• Through the internet, exchange of child sexual exploitation material, the availability of cybercrime tools and services, and illicit commodities such as firearms will sooner or later ruin the network of cyber security if drastic measures are not put in place to counter the threat.