MASTER OF COMPUTER APPLICATIONS

MCB1847 – CYBER SECURITY ESSENTIALS

UNIT – I
INTRODUCTION TO CYBER CRIME :
Cybercrime is any criminal activity that involves a computer, network or networked device. While most
cybercriminals use cybercrimes to generate a profit, some cybercrimes are carried out against computers
or devices to directly damage or disable them.
The motives behind cybercrime can be financial gain, political agenda, personal vendettas, or even thrill-
seeking.
INFORMATION SECURITY(INFOSEC):
The term 'information security' means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized
access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction in order to provide integrity,
confidentiality, and availability.
Why We Use Information Security?
We use information security to protect valuable information assets from a wide range of threats, including
theft, espionage, and cybercrime. Here are some key reasons why information security is important:
 Protecting sensitive information: Information security helps protect sensitive information
from being accessed, disclosed, or modified by unauthorized individuals. This includes
personal information, financial data, and trade secrets, as well as confidential government
and military information.
 Mitigating risk: By implementing information security measures, organizations can
mitigate the risks associated with cyber threats and other security incidents. This includes
minimizing the risk of data breaches, denial-of-service attacks, and other malicious
activities.
 Compliance with regulations: Many industries and jurisdictions have specific regulations
governing the protection of sensitive information. Information security measures help ensure
compliance with these regulations, reducing the risk of fines and legal liability.
 Protecting reputation: Security breaches can damage an organization’s reputation and lead
to lost business. Effective information security can help protect an organization’s reputation
by minimizing the risk of security incidents.
 Ensuring business continuity: Information security helps ensure that critical business
functions can continue even in the event of a security incident. This includes maintaining
access to key systems and data, and minimizing the impact of any disruptions.
3 Principles of Information Security
Information security is necessary to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information,
whether it is stored digitally or in other forms such as paper documents. Information Security programs
are built around 3 objectives, commonly known as CIA – Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability.
 Confidentiality – Means information is not disclosed to unauthorized individuals, entities
and process. For example, if we say I have a password for my Gmail account but someone
 saw while I was doing a login into Gmail account. In that case my password has been
compromised and Confidentiality has been breached.
 Integrity – Means maintaining accuracy and completeness of data. This means data cannot
be edited in an unauthorized way. For example, if an employee leaves an organisation, then
in that case data for that employee in all departments like accounts, should be updated to
reflect status to JOB LEFT so that data is complete and accurate and in addition to this only
authorized person should be allowed to edit employee data.
 Availability – Means information must be available when needed. For example, if one
needs to access information of a particular employee to check whether employee has
outstood the number of leaves, in that case it requires collaboration from different
organizational teams like network operations, development operations, incident response
and policy/change management. Denial of service attack is one of the factors that can
hamper the availability of information.

CYBER CRIMINALS:
Cybercriminals are individuals or teams of people who use technology to commit malicious activities on
digital systems or networks with the intention of stealing sensitive company information or personal data,
and generating profit.
Cybercriminals are known to access the cybercriminal underground markets found in the deep web to
trade malicious goods and services, such as hacking tools and stolen data. Cybercriminal underground
markets are known to specialize in certain products or services.
Types of Cyber Criminals
Hackers
The term hacker may refer to anyone with technical skills, however, it typically refers to an individual
who uses his or her skills to achieve unauthorized access to systems or networks to commit crimes. The
intent of the burglary determines the classification of those attackers as white, grey, or black hats. White
hat attackers burgled networks or PC systems to get weaknesses to boost the protection of those systems.
The owners of the system offer permission to perform the burglary, and they receive the results of the
look at. On the opposite hand, black hat attackers make the most of any vulnerability for embezzled
personal, monetary, or political gain. Grey hat attackers are somewhere between white and black hat
attackers. Grey hat attackers could notice a vulnerability and report it to the owners of the system if that
action coincides with their agenda.
 Gray Hat Hackers- These hackers carry out violations and do seemingly deceptive things
however not for individual addition or to cause harm. These hackers may disclose
a vulnerability to the affected organization after having compromised their network and they
may exploit it.
  Black Hat Hackers- These hackers are unethical criminals who violate network security for
personal gain. They misuse vulnerabilities to bargain PC frameworks. These hackers always
exploit the information or any data they get from the unethical pen-testing of the network.
Organized Hackers
These criminals embody organizations of cyber criminals, hacktivists, terrorists, and state-sponsored
hackers. Cybercriminals are typically teams of skilled criminals targeted on control, power, and wealth.
These criminals are extremely subtle and organized, and should even give crime as a service. These
attackers are usually profoundly prepared and well-funded.
Internet Stalkers
Internet stalkers are people who maliciously monitor the web activity of their victims to acquire personal
data. This type of cybercrime is conducted through the use of soci
al networking platforms and malware, that can track an individual’s PC activity with little or no
detection.
The Rogue Employees
Rogue/Disgruntled employees become hackers with a particular motive and commit cyber-crimes. It is
hard to believe that dissatisfied employees can become such malicious hackers. In the previous time, they
had the only option of going on strike against employers. But with the advancement of technology, there
is an increase in work on computers and the automation of processes, it is simple for disgruntled
employees to do more damage to their employers and organizations by committing cyber-crimes. The
attacks by such employees bring the entire system down.
CLASSIFICATION OF CYBERCRIME:
Classification of Cybercrime
Cybercrime is based on the crime, to whom the crime has been committed whether a person or an
organization, then what is the nature of the crime which has been committed online, and last what is the
motive to commit a crime i.e., either it is done for personal motive, financially, politically, to harm society
or due to unfair justice system.
It is broadly divided into 4 categories i.e.-
 Cybercrime against Individuals – Crimes committed online by cybercriminals against a
person or an individual include e-mail spoofing, harassment via e-mails, defamation, cyber
stalking, etc.
 Cybercrime against Property – Crimes committed against property include credit card fraud,
intellectual property crimes, computer vandalism, internet thefts, etc.
 Cybercrime against Organization – Crime committed using the internet against a company,
an organization, or a government. The motive is to get the confidential data of private and
government institutions or entities. These cyberattacks are initiated to threaten international
and national governments or private entities to get a lump sum of money from the
institutions and to spread terror among people, including cyber espionage, cyber terrorism,
salami attack, web jacking, attack by a virus, etc.
 Cybercrime against Society – Crime committed affects the interest of society at large and
against the public, including child pornography, human trafficking, online gambling, etc.
Some of the examples of cybercrimes are –
 1. E- mail spoofing: It is a type of cyberattack in which the individual or businesses are the
targets where an email is sent to the person in which the senders address is forged, the
header is forged, so that the e-mail appears to be from original source but actually it is from
unauthoritative source in which the malicious link or attachment has been found.
2. Cyber Bullying: Also known as cyber harassment. Its purpose is to bully someone,
embarrass or threatening the victim using electronic mode, digital device or through internet
such as laptops, computers, or cell phones, etc. It includes some of the activities like hacking
social media accounts, sharing child pornography, posting unnecessary comments, sending
offensive messages, etc. In today’s modern world it is common among teenagers of bullying
some other person with personal motive.
3. Cyber Stalking: Stalking done by one person to another person, contacting or following
using any electronic mode of communication irrespective of the fact that the person has no
interest at all. Trying to browse persons internet history or online activity, sending vulgar
content to the person using social media or other applications is known as cyber stalking.
4. Phishing: It is a type of fraud sending the e-mails in the pretext of the reputed companies to
induce a person to reveal a personal information like passwords, credit/debit card number,
CVV, ATM pin, OTP, etc. Through this attack the cyber criminals not only exploit the
individual but also damage company’s reputation.
5. Cyber Terrorism: It is done using cyberspace through a computer or the internet, a volent
acts which is done digitally to harm the integrity or sovereignty of any country, loss to lives
of people, harm the public, disturb the unity or security of the nation to create terror in the
minds of the people. For ex – Hacking Govt. sites or army sites and conceals confidential
information.
6. Cyber Pornography or Child Pornography: Any material which contains sexual images or
videos of any child or any individual in which they are sexually exploited and not wearing
clothes, using the internet publishes, distribute, import, display or share with any person is
called cyber pornography.
7. Cyber Warfare: Also defined as cyberattack or a series of attack which is conducted on the
enemy country. Mainly the target is battling space and has the potential to create disaster on
other country’s government and the civilian infrastructure even can cause to loss of lives.
Espionage, sabotage, DoS attacks, Economic disruption, etc. are some types of it.
8. Denial of Service (DoS) attack: It is a cyberattack on a computer or another system where it
prevents the legal user of the computer to access the computer, they target the attack in this
manner that in the end the system gets crashed. This cost millions of rupees to the corporate
world to use their own system to prevent this kind of attacks.
9. Salami Attack: It is a type of attack where hacker or attacker steals money in small amounts
and the damage done is so small that it is unnoticed. It is of two types i.e. Salami Slicing in
which by using online data the attacker steals information like credit/debit card details, CVV
numbers etc. and other is Penny Shaving by using these methods hacker steal money in
small amounts.
CYBER OFFENSES:
Attacks:
A cyberattack is any intentional effort to steal, expose, alter, disable, or destroy data, applications,
or other assets through unauthorized access to a network, computer system or digital device.
Types of Cyber Attacks
We can classify by the attacks in cyber world on the base of its process and resource impact. Their
varieties, in such a scenario, will be numerous. Here is a quick overview of key cyber-attack types:
1. Man-in-the-middle attack
MitM method involves introducing the threat actor as a legitimate resource between two parties that
could be a computer system and a server or a server and web application.
With the forced introduction in the middle of 2 parties, the attack becomes a part of information
exchange and other processes and steals crucial information.
2. DoS and DDoS attack
Denial of service (DoS) and Distributed DoS (DDoS) involve stopping verified resources to access
a particular system/website by sending overflowing access requests.
For instance, an attacker can send multiple access requests to a CRM software of an organization to
keep it busy so that legitimate professionals fail to access it in the time of need. Mainly, it’s used to
plan a more damaging attack in the future.
3. SQL injection
These attacks are made through the SQL-based ill-intended codes introduced to the vulnerable
system/applications. Upon successful introduction, a SQL injection can collect the query results,
give new commands to the systems, and perform prohibited actions on success.
4. Zero-day exploit
This term is used for cyber-attacks that remain unnoticed for many days, or sometimes, for months.
Usually, zero-day exploits take place by taking advantage of any hardware/software weaknesses.
The intensity of 0-day attacks is generally low in the beginning and lasts for longer.
 5. DNS Tunneling
Cyber-attacks happening via exploiting the DNS tunneling, a well-known transactional protocol, are
not very uncommon. Attackers can use them for their gains and can steal crucial information. As the
involved protocol deals with data exchange processes of the application, organizations need to be
very careful against it.
6. Phishing
A highly nuisance-creating cyber-attack type, phishing involves using corrupted emails to steal
sensitive information. Threat actors will send tempting emails like’ you have won a prize’, ‘you got
an offer, a loan is approved, and many others to lure the target cyber attack and will ask them to
click on a particular link and share details like credit card details, bank info, CVV data, and many
more.
The emails are crafted with such perfection that it seems they have come up from trusted sources.
Phishing accounts for nearly half of the total cyber-attacks happening in the world.
7. Malware
Malware cyber-attack involves introducing corrupted software into the targeted system to steal the
information or malfunction it completely. The malware used for these attacks is of various types,
e.g., Trojan, Remote Access Trojan, spyware, worms, and ransomware.
8. XSS attacks
XSS or cross-scripting attack is basically a security vulnerability targeting the web application at
large. A successful XSS attack will allow an attacker to introduce client-side scripts to the targeted
web application page. Often, the attack is used to bypass the access control policies imposed on a
web application.
9. Social engineering
It is a type of cyber-attack based on the psychological manipulation of the target. Unlike other
cyber-attacks, it needs the expertise to bend the human bind, use emotional biases, and track
personal/sensitive information. This technique is used most often for intrusions and has a very high
success rate.
10. Ransomware
A subcategory of malware attack, ransomware attack involves threatening the victim to leak or
publish the crucial information on the public domain if the asked ransom amount is not paid.
At the beginning of the attack, the hacker implants ransomware into the targeted victim’s system
that decrypts the stored data and forwards it to the hacker. Some of the most common ways to
introduce ransomware are phishing, adware, and USB drives.
11. Cryptojacking
One of the most recent and nuisance-creating cyber-attack, cryptojacking aims only at the
cryptocurrency owners. Hackers gain the access to your resources and start the cryptomining
process. The cost of this resource-intensive job will now be paid by victim’s resources/network
while the gain will of intruders.
Cyber Stalking:
Cyberstalking is a crime committed when someone uses the internet and other technologies to
harass or stalk another person online. Even though cyberstalking is a broad term for online
harassment, it can include defamation, false accusations, teasing, and even extreme threats.

CYBER CAFÉ:
A cybercafe is a place where you can go to access the internet, use computers, and enjoy various
online services. It's like a café but with computers instead of coffee cups. You can use it for different
purposes such as browsing the web, checking emails, social media, gaming, or even working
remotely.