Agape Blog

Cyber crime is no longer an alien term for anyone today. We have been hearing about it, reading about it and talking about it, quoting examples of some victims or fraudsters. With advancements in technology, criminals and their ways of commiting crimes are also getting advanced. To tackle this menace, we need some strong cyber crime prevention measures, may be in the form of cyber cells or cyber activity monitoring services. In India, we have very few cyber cells that can be easily counted on fingers. Of course this is not enough to address the enormous issue of cyber crime.

Recently, Mohali police took a lead in getting the state’s first cyber crime police station-cum-forensic science laboratory. The Rs 8-crore state-of-the-art project will end the Punjab Police’s dependency on forensic science laboratories in other states for various tests.

The building — which will house a cyber crime police station and laboratories in Physics, Texilogy, lie-detection, Biology, Chemistry and Ballistic, as part of forensic science — will come up within two years. The Punjab Police Housing Corporation (PPHC) is the executing agency of the project. Also, a training institute, the Punjab Police Training Institute for private security guards at Jahan Khelan is expected to complete by June 2009. The institute, which is worth Rs 10 crore, will provide training to 4,000 security guards every year and with the implementation of the Private Security Agencies (Regulation) Act, 2005.

This project is a step forward for the Punjab Police towards becoming cyber-savvy and a hi-tech police force with effective investigation of crimes through advanced modes. Such steps are what is needed to ensure that the technology does not harm people. Such steps indicate that India is getting ready to tackle hi-tech crime.

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) is an independent information security certification governed by the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (commonly known as (ISC)²). And CISSP education is a means of educating individuals about how information security works, how to go about making information secure, and how to ensure that it stays that way.

CISSP Education has to do with keeping information secure. When you want to maintain the integrity and private nature of information in the age of the internet, you need people who are trained to do just that. They have to be able to protect your information by creating a system that can defend itself against unauthorized entry from outside sources. This is the essence of CISSP Education.

Imagine the consequences of intercepted credit card numbers, social security numbers, and bank accounts that are openly accessible to anyone with enough knowledge of computer hacking. Without the existence of information security, the results would be disastrous.

Remember, a security guard may be able to protect information that is stored in a warehouse but to protect your network, you need someone with CISSP education. It is a way of policing the network.

For more information on CISSP certification, visit: http://www.isc2.org/cissp/default.aspx

Lot has been talked about cyber crime and ways to prevent it. The rate at which it is growing is enormous. And now with teenagers jumping in this dirty trade, cyber crime is bound to rise at a rapid rate. Till now, only professional hackers used to play this dirty game but now even the 11 year old kids seem to master this trade.

According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center 2007 annual report, USA stood first in the list of countries responsible for perpetrating most cyber crimes, followed by Britain. United States accounting for 63.2%, United Kingdom with 15.3% and Canada with 9.78% are the main countries from where cyber crime is penetrating.

But the involvement of increasing number of teenagers in hi-tech crime is a cause of worry. Computer security professionals say many net forums are populated by teenagers swapping credit card numbers, phishing kits and hacking tips. And their poor technical skills make them more vulnerable in getting caught and arrested. Usually it all starts with many teenagers getting into low level crime by looking for exploits and cracks for their favorite computer games. And this is when the big players contact them via communities and forums and ask the innocent kids to swap malicious programs, knowledge and sometimes stolen data.

Such an issue needs to be addressed immediately as the teenagers on being caught can be subjected to punishment whose nature can be mild or severe. And most importantly, the teenagers will be risking their entire future if they are caught.

Online frauds and cyber crimes are causing enormous loss to many businesses. Given below are the links that focus more on the increasing problem in the cyber space.

1. Aviad Ofrat, CEO of Cellebrite discusses about mobile forensics as well as the Universal Forensic Extraction Device. Read more

2. RM3 billion lost to fraud: a loss that reflects the size of the problem for businesses regardless of size. Read more

3. Most UK individuals prefer to report online fraud directly to a dedicated e-crime agency. A thing that surely needs to be learned from the Brits. Read more

Having focused on DNA forensics last week, this week i am presenting links that highlight more on the importance of other methods of forensics and how to make maximum use of forensics in crime investigation.

1. Can a forensics consultant rip off government? Thats what the Punjab government feels while establishing the Forensics Science Agency (FSA). Read more.
2. Data recovery is the process of retrieving computer data that, for any number of reasons, has become inaccessible using normal methods. In such cases some special methods are used to recover the data. Read more to know such methods.
3. Investigating Digital Crime. This is a book written by Robin Phillip Bryant in which he introduces comprehensive ways focusing on how criminals have adapted digital technologies. Rob Harle presents his review on the same. Read more.

Is it really possible to catch an email stalker? What if they use an anonymous email account like Gmail or Yahoo? What if they are really computer savvy? Is it still possible? The short answer is Yes. An email stalker can be caught.

The first thing you must realize about an email stalker is that they want you to know who they are. So the typical email stalker will take steps to cover their tracks. They may use free anonymous accounts with fictitious information and even proxy servers or IP spoofing. But one thing they cannot hide is their obsessive compulsive antisocial behavior that causes them to stalk you in the first place. Make no mistake to take this casually as such behavior should be taken seriously. And that same abnormal behavior of the stalker can be predicted and used to trap them into revealing their identity.

If you are a victim of an email stalker then the last thing you should do is ignore it and hope it goes away. If it doesnt, you should consult an expert as nailing the stalker is risky and not any individual can do it. In this type of situation trained investigators experienced in tracking down and identifying cyber stalkers can use the predictable behavior of the obsessive stalker to set traps and trick the stalker into revealing themselves.

With the number of hackers and fraudsters increasing and posing a threat for online users, FBI took the responsibility to punish them. And how they did it was by collecting information about hackers, a method that is often used by the hackers themselves to spoof information from genuine users.

The FBI launched a forum www.darkmarket.ws that captured the details of thousands of hackers and spammers online. Many ID thieves and hackers had been using DarkMarket as a forum to share details of victims and tips, however the whole forum was secretly run by a federal cybercrime agent for two years. J. Keith Mularski was the FBI agent who was managing the forum. He is a senior cybercrime agent based at the National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance in Pittsburgh. The forum has been voluntarily closed earlier this month after running for just under two years, the reason given was that the forum was ‘attracting too much information’.

This forum was uncovered by the German radio station Südwestrundfunk. It indicated that FBI used DarkMarket to build ‘intelligence briefs’ on its members, complete with their internet IP addresses and details of their activities on the site.

Security companies understand the importance of applying brakes to the increasing activities of spammers. Hence it has been managing various activities like the one carried out by FBI. Also in 2004, the Secret Service ran a similar scheme on the crime board ShadowCrew.

Informative articles always help everyone as they result in knowledge addition. Keeping the same thought in mind, the links this week point to some very informative articles, which will surely help you.

1. Computers are now weapons used to steal people’s identity, defraud companies of trade secrets, or prey on children online. Such cyber threats must be tackled in a proper way. Read more
2. Your hard drive got corrupted and you fear the possibility of losing your important data. Heres when data recovery can help you. Michael Stankard explains how hard drives work, why they fail and what you as users can do to protect your data. Read more
3. A new research center will study ways to improve personal identification management on the Internet to combat identity theft and fraud, narcotics and cyber terrorism. Read more

Identity theft is a rising phenomenon as people are trying to misuse the democratic nature of the internet. This term is used to refer to fraud that involves stealing money or getting other benefits (like personal or confidential information) by pretending to be someone else. Identity theft can be of the following types:

1. Financial identity theft
2. Criminal identity theft
3. Identity cloning
4. Business/commercial identity theft

There are a number of ways in which criminals can steal your identity, the one most commonly known is the raiding of bins, where personal information is stolen from your rubbish. Other forms are online, postal, theft of mail or telephone scams.

Identity theft when taken further gives rise to Identity Fraud, which is a situation when this information is used by criminals and fraudsters. Many victims of identity fraud do not realise they have had their identities stolen until it is too late. They start to suspect if card statements or bills either arrive late or do not turn up, unusual transactions on bills and bank statements, being contacted by companies about new accounts or services you are not aware of and being refused credit unexpectedly.

To create more awareness on these two threatning phenomenons the West Yorkshire Police has started the National Identity Fraud Protection Week from today. The program will raise awareness of identity theft and how it can be prevented. “Your identity is personal to you; don’t allow anyone to steal it”, is the punch line they are focusing on.

We have heard the term bullying when we were in schools/universities. We have encountered many cases, where a senior is bullying his junior or a trickster bullying a simpleton. This act is committed when an individual hates another individual / group and wants to vent his anger.

When this bullying happens on the web, it is referred as - Cyber Bullying. The term refers to a situation when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through emails or text messages, or uses online forums intended to harm, damage, humiliate or isolate another person. It mostly happens when teens use the Internet, cell phones, or other devices to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person. Cyber-bullies may disclose victims personal data (e.g. real name, address, or workplace/schools) at websites or forums that defames or ridicules them. Educators have observed an alarming rise in the number of school fights being filmed and posted on YouTube. Thus, many researches have started to recognize cyber bullying as cyber crime.

To talk more about this increasing menace, around 200 Bay Area educators met at Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale. Yahoo child safety expert Catherine Titlebalm informed the participants that online unethical behavior can be prevented through education. She also said that kids can be taught of different ways to protect themselves from cyber-bullying. Proper education can definitely reduce the vulnerability of kids being victims of such a menace. But some of the enforcement agencies have already started to take steps to punish the one who tries to bully someone in the cyber space.