Old Crime, New Tools or New Crime, New Tools
Internet crime like virus attacks, hacking, theft and different forms of fraud is a growing problem worldwide. High-technology crime is the unlawful use of computer technologies such as the internet, whether to attack new technology and in order to support so-called old crimes such as fraud, identity theft and embezzlement (BBC News 2004). The rapid development of computer technology has spawned a variety of new criminal behaviors and an explosion in specialized legislation to combat them. While computer crimes include traditional crimes committed with a computers, the term also encompasses offenses against intellectual property and other crimes which do not fall within traditional criminal statutes (Carroll and Schrader 1995). Computer/Cyber crime is considered as the most swiftly expanding
Old Crime, New Tools
A computer may be an instrument used as a means of committing traditional crimes such as theft, fraud, embezzlement, or trespass, although in a more complex manner.
Internet Fraud
Internet fraud generally refers to any form of fraud scheme that lakes use of one or more components of the internet to present deceitful solicitations to prospective victims, to conduct fraudulent transactions, or to transmit the proceeds of fraud to financial institutions or to other connected with the scheme United States Department of Justice 2008).
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States, the most prevalent Internet frauds involve, in ranked order, are Online auctions, Internet access, Web site design and promotion, Online information and adult entertainment services, Pyramid schemes, Business and work-at-home opportunities, Investment and other ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes, Vacation and travel services, Telephone or pay-per-call solicitations, Health fraud (Loza 2002).
Online Auction Fraud
Online auction fraud is among the most common form of internet fraud today. Let us discuss the scope and the evolution of this crime. Fraudulent practices can occur during two distinct phases of the online auction process. First, the fraud can take place during the actual bidding process. Two types of fraud at this stage are bid shielding and bid shilling. The buyers may send payment to the seller and receive no merchandise at all. The buyers may send payment to the seller and receive inferior or completely different merchandise. Finally, the buyer may win the auction but never send any payment.
1. Bid shilling occurs when an individual schemes with someone else or creates a false identity in order to drive up the bidding prices on behalf of the seller. The effect of this fraudulent practice is to artificially encourage legitimate bidders to continually increase their bid in an effort to win the auction. Many times the individual creating a false identity is the seller then bids on its own merchandise in an effort to increase the overall price received for the goods.
2. Bid shielding takes place when a buyer and a partner artificially increase the bids during the auction. Unlike bid shilling, which hopes to encourage increasingly higher bids, this scheme of bid inflation is intended to discourage other bidders from bidding because the false bid is set at an usually high level. Then, at the last moment before the auction ends, the shielder, who is the high bidder, cancels its bid whereby his/her partner wins the auction with the lower bid.
3. The winning bidder sending payment to the seller and receiving nothing in return is the most common type of fraud occurring after the close of an auction. Some online sellers have put items up for auction, taken the highest bidder’s money, and never delivered the merchandise. In addition, consumers who paid by certified check or money order have little recourse when it comes to getting their money back.
4. Another form of post-auction fraud occurs when the high bidder mails payment to the seller only to have the seller send either different merchandise or merchandise of lower quality to the bidder. While the bidder receives some merchandise, the goods the consumer receives are usually of such poor quality that the purchase is virtually worthless.
5. Another form of fraud that occurs after the close of an auction is when the successful bidder fails to send any payment to the seller. It is not unheard of for high bidder in an auction to walk away from the offer and refuse to complete the transaction. While the direct cost of these frauds is not as apparent as frauds involving payment made for either nothing or inferior goods, the indirect effects are grave. The cost of having to run an entirely new auction from scratch causes delay for the sellers in their attempts to sell their goods. Furthermore, all disreputable actions cast a cloud of distrust over the online auction system as a whole, thereby undermining what little consumer confidence currently exists (Snyder 2000).
New Crime, New Tools
The computer may be the subject of a crime. In these cases, the computer is the physical site of a crime, or is the source of or reason for unique forms of assets lost. The use of viruses and logic bombs fit into this category. These crimes present novel legal problems because of the intangible nature of the electronic information which is the object of the crime (Carroll and Schrader 1995).
Spreading of Viruses and Malware
The first virus to be identified was Brain, which emerged in 1986. By the end of the 1980s, the number of known viruses had increased to just seven, but rose more rapidly the following year, numbering eighty. The number of viruses more than doubled between 1998 and 1999 from 20,500 to 42, 000. By the beginning of 2002, estimated growth of viruses was 1,200 a month. With the development of the internet and increasing number of users online, more computers than ever before are affected by malware than has the potential to damage data or have other destructive effects (Whittaker 2004).
Common Malwares
- Adbots – Adbots are used to deliver unwanted advertisements to the computer, usually in the form of pop up windows.
- Backdoor – A backdoor is a way into a user’s computer bypassing the normal authentication procedures. Backdoors allow hackers to utilize the user’s computer for any reason in which they can conceive.
- DDoS Zombie – One type of virus that creates a backdoor into the system which a hacker can use as a Distributed Denial of Service tool. Basically the computer is used along with thousands of other infected computers to send mass amounts of network traffic to a target machine.
- Hijackers – Hijackers take control of various parts of the user’s web browser, including the home page, search pages and search bar. They may also redirect the user to certain sites should the user mistype an address or prevent a user from going to a website.
- Keyloggers – Keyloggers are malware which can capture the keystrokes from the user’s keyboard and save them to afile to be transmitted to a hacker later on.
- Spyware – Spyware is a generic term for malicious software which ends up on the user’s computer and is used to gather information about the user and other files on the computer. This information includes the user’s visited sites, or in worse cases, the user’s personal information used for identity theft.
- Trojans – Trojans are backdoors in the computer in which access is gained by hackers on the internet to either gather information from the user’s computer or to use the computer as a tool for malicious activity such as internet extortion schemes, sending spam or using the user’s computer to hack into other systems (www.iusb,edu).
Implications of Malware Attacks
Most organizations in the United Kingdom have been the victim of a malware attack. The business implications of malware attacks are becoming a serious threat for organizations. The highest ranking among organizational complaints on malware attacks is the increased help desk time to repair spyware damage. Another problem is the reduced productivity. Still another important problem caused by malware attacks is disrupted business activities (Continuity Central 2006). Malware has become a money-making tool. Malware before has mostly taken advantage of technical weakness and the creation of malware has been characterized as a hobby of careless but computer savvy teenagers. Now malware has changed. It is now a crime. It is intended to steal information and credentials, it tries to blackmail people and it commits click-fraud. It is also being used to support other criminal activities such as spam and denial of service. Denial of service is widely used to blackmail organizations eager to remain connected to the internet. Malware has also become a tool that relies on social vulnerabilities. It uses deceit to spread (www.malware-jakobsson.info).
References
Are UK Organizations Losing the War on Malware? 2006, Continuity Central,
viewed 09 January, 2008, <http://www.continuitycentral.com/news02906.htm>.
Barreca, D 2003, ‘Unawed by Fraud: New Techniques and Technologies Have
Been Enlisted in the Fight against Online Fraud’, Security Management, September, p. 75+.
Carroll, M and Schrader, R 1995, ‘Computer-Related Crimes’, American Criminal
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Internet and Telemarketing Fraud 2007, United States Department of Justice,
viewed 09 January, 2008,
<http://www.cybersafe.gov/criminal/fraud/internet/>.
Jacobsson, M, Malware: The Next Big Internet Threat, viewed 09 January, 2008,
<http://www.malware-jakobsson.info/>.
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Police Tackle Internet Crime 2004, BBC News, UK, viewed 09 January, 3008
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/north_east/4035037.stm>.
Snyder, J 2002, ‘Online Auction Fraud: Are the Auction Houses Doing All They
Should or Could to Stop Online Fraud?’, Federal Communications Law Journal, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 453+.
Therapeutic Goods Administration 2004, Department of Health and Ageing,
Canberra, viewed 13 October, 2004, <www.tga.gov.au>.
What You Should Know about the Dangers of the Internet, Indiana University
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Whittaker, J 2004, The Cyberspace Handbook, Routledge, London.
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