Agape Blog

Dear team,

I am greatly thankful to the fraud management team at AGAPE for taking my case (orkut profile hacked) seriously.

I had filed a complaint at various places but could not receive any help from them. But after registering my complaint at AGAPE, within a week I received a mail from the fraud management team giving the details of my hacked ID. It was unbelievable. A million thanks for such an incredible job.

I give my high regards for such an effort done by you.

888888

Dear Sir,

I would like to express my thanks in getting my fake orkut profile blocked.

This has really helped me cause I was been terribly impersonated on orkut for months which had adverse effect on me and my family as there was a lot of personal information in the profile.

Thanks a lot for considering my case sensitive and helping me get back to my normal life.

888888

Hi,
You have done really good work. I tried to get this job done by many other means but nothing worked. Thank you so much for your assistance and the time you spent. God bless you.

Regards,
8888888

Dear Sir,

Thanks a lot for your support, pls note that I am able to open my e-mail id, now I want to change the password, I am trying to change that, but when I click on to change password it ask for previous passord & new passord,

I entered *********** as previous password, & a new passord, but it not changing and showing that the previous password entered is in correct.

Pls help.

Best Regards,

88888888

Note: Name of the client is not shown due to privacy & security reasons.

Cyber Crime is a daunting reality today. It affects every individual connected by a computer or technology. You may not be a hacker but your computer is a potential weapon for criminals to use to attack and damage countries, corporations and even mastermind the destruction of human lives. “Everyone must be aware of the risks that cyber crime and cyber terrorism poses, as ignorance may lead to huge losses and even endanger lives.” Even the participants of the EC-Council Asia Pacific Roundtable Forum unanimously responded to this statement.

Information security is not simply the responsibility of network administrators only, it is the responsibility of every internet user as their ignorance may result in millions of dollars in losses and even the loss of lives. The lack of education among both the users and authorities often results in allowing criminals easy access to even the most high tech security areas. One of the leading cyber crime expert said “No one treats a cyber crime like a murder case, often evidence cannot be used legally as it has been contaminated by the victim or the incident handler, allowing these criminals to escape prosecution.”

Truly, many times people simply ignore to follow certain basic rules like keeping their passwords private or securing their WiFi connections. And they only realise about theor mistakes when it is too late. This is where proper legislation, awareness and education among all levels right from the top management level to even security guards in any corporation is required to ensure the eradication of cyber crimes.

The articles that feature today are on some serious issues. These issues need to be addressed with great care to face the hi-tech environment that we are subjected to. So I am asking some questions to all of you. Read these articles and tell me what you feel.

1. Why all customers of SBI cards need to check their accounts regularly. Read more

2. Do we really require some laws for the Blogosphere. Read more

3. Does India need a National Cyber Security Advisory Board. Read more

I want answers/views from all of you.

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.

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.

With the financial crisis affecting USA severly, it has also affected other countries. This has resulted in a complete turn around in terms of the spendings worldwide. And with such tight situations, online financial fraud has witnessed a soaring growth.

Britan has been the worst affected country after witnessing a soaring cyber crime rate in 2007. A recent report published by an online firm stated that cyber crime in the UK rose by more than 9 percent in 2007. According to Tom Ilube, chief executive, Garlick, majority of the crimes committed online were in relation to fraud and abusive or threatening emails leaving more than two million people prone to online harassment.

The study further revealed that the online crimes were being committed by professionals and one could expect an overall increase owing to the credit crunch that would led many people to perform illegal activities. It’s critical in this time of financial crisis that individuals are vigilant with their personal information, because as long as the credit crunch continues, the growth in online financial fraud is bound to increase.

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.

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.

Today, i am presenting links which are mostly information based, but very useful at the same time. The links provide effective tips which everyone should know, to avoid being caught in a major internet security breach disaster.

1. Dating can be dangerous in the cyber world. Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner Linda Kelly explains the right way. Read more
2. How to prevent cyber cops from ringing your doorbell. Read more
3. Ensure your data is recovered before a disaster occurs. Read more