Cybercrime and Preventive Measures

A Quick Guide to Get Yourself Secured and Protected from Digital Threats, Social Media Risks, and Cyber Criminals (English Edition)

Priyanka Tomar, Sanjay Gautam

• Publisher: BPB Publications
• Year: 2021
• Topic: Computer Science
• eBook ISBN:
  9789390684526
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

Cyber crime stories and tricks used by cyber criminals to trap people and preventive tips to avoid cyber crimes.

Key Features
? Real-case studies and true events on cyber crime incidents.
? Learn how to protect yourself from cyber threats and assist police for crime investigation.
? Coverage on financial frauds, social media crimes, mobile payment frauds, and a lot more.

Description
The book 'Cybercrime and Preventive Measures' provides a strong and precise introduction to the world of cybercrime and the need of cyber awareness for everyone. It begins with email-related popular cyber crimes such as phishing, spamming, spoofing, email bombing, etc. It talks about the methodologies adopted by cyber criminals to trap people along with some real-case studies (names of victims changed) and preventive measures to be taken to safeguard against email-related cyber crime.This book exposes you to a variety of financial frauds committed by cyber criminals and the modus of operandi they adopt while committing cyber crimes along with numerous case studies. The book keeps you informed about what preventive and safety measures can be exercised so that you can protect yourself, your family, and even your workplace.This book also assists young teenagers and school students about the methods adopted by hackers and how to remain safe while using social media applications and Internet shopping sites. This book talks about the risks involved and preventive measures that need to be taken while using mobile apps.

What you will learn
? Get familiar with the top rated cyber crime incidents in India.
? Understand the different types of cyber crimes and the modus of operandi adopted by the cyber criminals.
? Learn to identify and manage cybersecurity threats and protect yourself from cyber vulnerabilities.

Who this book is for
This book is for everyone, students, or professionals, who are frequently using smartphones, computers, laptops, and smart devices over the Internet. This book guides you to protect yourself from cyber threats while browsing the internet, watching videos over the Internet, using emails, and using social media apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or playing online games.

Table of Contents
1. Email-related Cybercrimes
2. Financial Frauds and Cybercrime
3. Cybercrime in Social Media
4. Mobile Application-related Frauds
5. To Do List for Working Professionals and Small Businesses
6. Complaint Registration Procedure
7. References

About the Authors
Priyanka Tomar, is the Director of New Era System Pvt Ltd and has 18 years of experience in various IT fields, including Cyber Security and Cyber Forensics. She has been a guest faculty at CBI Academy, Ghaziabad since 2014 and is also an advisor to government and private organisations on cybersecurity-related issues, R&D projects, etc.She is a regular speaker and discussion panelist at cybersecurity events. She imparts customized Cyber Security Training on cyber security and cyber forensics such as darknet forensics, cryptocurrency forensics, cyber Intelligence & OSINT, Network Forensics, Protecting Critical Infrastructure, Website Security, Blockchain-based solutions, IoT & Smart Cities Solutions, etc. Blog Link: Cybersecurityaudits Sanjay Gautam joined CBI in 2002 and has experience in the investigation of anti-corruption cases and cyber crime cases, including crimes against women and children. He has provided technical assistance in various hi-profile cases. He has attended a number of INTERPOL's Train-the-Trainer workshops in India, Cyprus, and South Korea and was ranked 1st among various INTERPOL countries. He is a regular guest faculty for various Central Training Institutes. He was also invited by UNDP and INTERPOL to deliver a lecture at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has also attended INTERPOL's Digital Forensics Experts Meeting in South Korea. He has been imparting training to a large number of police officers from CBI, State Police Forces, Judiciary, Security Agencies, CPOs, etc. from India, SAARC. LinkedIn Bio: Sanjay Gautam

CHAPTER 1

Email-related Cybercrime

Introduction

Cybercrime is a criminal activity wherein a single computer, multiple computers, or interconnected computers/devices have been used. A cyberattack may involve the intranet and internet. Cybercrime can be committed by an individual, group of people, organizations, and even state-sponsored agencies.

Structure

In this chapter, we will cover the following email-related popular cybercrimes (along with examples) such as:

• Spamming
• Phishing
• Bombing
• Spoofing

Objective

To make you aware of a variety of cybercrimes carried out through email and preventive measures to safeguard.

Popular email-related cybercrimes

In this diagram, the first line defines cybercrime, and the second line tells the objective.

Some of the most popular email related cybercrimes are shown in Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.1: Email-related cybercrimes

Let us now see them in detail one by one:

• Spamming: Unwanted, bulk emails sent to recipients for some motive such as advertising, stealing personal information, installation of malware, or selling illegal/prohibited items. Often it is called the negative side of email marketing:

  

  Figure 1.2: Spam email
  Example: Cybercriminals hacked Sumit's email ID and took over his laptop.
  When Sumit opened his email ID to check emails from school, he could not log in. So, he filed a hacking complaint. After a police investigation, it was found that hackers performed an extensive search on Sumit activities, crawled his social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and found his date of birth.
  Almost researching for two months, the cybercriminals sent him an email with some attachments pretending to be his school administration authority. They chose a very catchy subject to grab Sumit's attention, made him download the attachments, and malware was downloaded onto his computer, and attackers got access to his laptop and webcam.
• Phishing: Cyber criminals impersonate individuals, organizations, and so on via emails. These fraudulent emails may appear from various government organizations such as the income tax department stating that you have not filed the income tax return on time, so you have to pay the penalty; it may pretend to be from a bank asking to update your KYC details; they send an exciting sale to offer free shopping voucher or cashback offer, or they may send threatening email stating that your email account will be closed if you don't respond to this email. As you click on the mentioned link in the email, it directs you to a fake website which is a look-alike of a legitimate website. An email related to corona update is a new phishing trend.

  

  Figure 1.3: Phishing
  Example: Victim receives an email from appearing to be from World Health Organization (WHO). The email had content related to COVID update and a weblink about coronavirus map update. On clicking, it directs him/her to a web page that asks for his personal information and address. On mouse click, this webpage installs malware to steal sensitive information from the device.
• Email bombing: Cyber criminals send a large number of emails in a very short span of time to flood your inbox using automated programs. It results in bouncing of emails as the email quota exceeds. Due to this, you may miss important communication, which may further result in the hanging of the webserver. Normally, official emails are the target as cyber criminals may have various intentions, such as taking control of your email id and harming the mail server by performing a denial of service (DoS) attack.

  

  Figure 1.4: Email bombing
  Example: A web hosting company was noticing heavy traffic on its web servers for some days, which was unusual. One day, many of its customer's websites go non-functional. After investigation, it was found that one of its competitors hired some hackers to launch an email bombing attack, due to which the company's web server was down and unable to perform.
• Spoofing: Emails are created with a forged sender address; often, the sender pretends to be someone known to the recipient. In spoofed emails, the sender's real identity is hidden, and he intends to get the recipient's financial details either by luring the recipient or by installing malware.

  

  Figure 1.5: Spoofing
  Example: Anjali Gupta, who works as a call centre executive, receives an email that appears to be from her office. As per the email content, the company offered her cashback on the purchase of groceries from an online portal because her performance was outstanding during the lockdown period. She has worked very efficiently. A link was mentioned in the email, and Anjali was asked to provide some banking details. Anjali followed the email instructions, and fraudsters called her pretending to be her office teammate and asked to share bank OTP. Anjali shared the OTP, and Rs 25,000/- were deducted from her account instead of credit. After investigation, it was determined as a case of email spoofing; Anjali did not crosscheck the email address properly and was trapped by the cyber criminals.

  

  Figure 1.6: Spoofing example

Email-related common tricks used by fraudsters

Some of the common tricks used by the fraudsters are as follows:

Figure 1.7: Trapping via email

Preventive steps to protect your email ID

Some of the preventive steps, which can be taken to protect your email id are as follows:

• Use a strong password. At least more than eight alphanumerical characters, for example, E7rQ#@$ut%^!M.
• Always scan the attachments (.zip, .exe, and so on) before opening them.
• Never click on links received in emails from strangers.
• Ignore/delete spam emails.
• Don't fall prey to gifts offered by the unknown in email.
• Never share your real date of birth, birthplace, geographical location, and other private information on social media.
• Implement two-way authentications. To activate it, add your phone number by accessing email account settings. Whenever you access your email from a new device, you will receive an SMS code for additional verification.
• Verify your email ID's login history to make sure that only you had opened your email account.
• Provide an alternate email address and phone so that the email service provider can contact you in case of suspicious activity.
• Check your recently used devices to check your email and see if there is any suspicious activity.
• Manage permissions for apps that are linked to your email account.
• Never disclose your password to anyone.
• Never save your password on any device.
• Crosscheck the website authenticity; look for URLs such as spelling, padlock (https) in the browser.
• If your email is compromised, contact your email service provider.
• Avoid similar passwords for multiple email IDs.
• Avoid free, public, and unsecured Wi-Fi.

CHAPTER 2

Financial Frauds and Cybercrime

Cybercriminals commit various financial frauds using digital means such as computers, the internet, smartphones, email, messages, etc. They send phishing emails or SMS, and as you click or open the attachment, malicious software gets installed into your digital device. They steal confidential informatio...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• About the Authors
• About the Reviewer
• Acknowledgement
• Preface
• Errata
• Table of Contents
• Cybercrime and Preventive Measures
• 1. Email-related Cybercrime
• 2. Financial Frauds and Cybercrime
• 3. Cybercrime in Social Media
• 4. Mobile Application-Related Frauds
• 5. To-Do List for Working Professionals and Small Business Houses
• 6. Complaint Registration
• Index