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Posts Tagged ‘Internet Crime’

Cybercriminals are not lone teenage hackers trying to prove their skills. Modern cybercriminals are organized, sophisticated tech-savvy and well-funded. The goal of these gangs can be summed up in one word: money. They’ve dreamed up hundreds of devious ways to reach their goal. They want sensitive data such as user names and passwords, credit card numbers, or e-mail addresses. They can then sell this data in bulk over the Internet to other criminals or use the information directly to steal or make money in numerous other ways.

Most cybercrime fall into two general categories. These categories can often work together.

The first type of Internet crime is called social engineering. It’s often an attempt to convince a user to open an email attachment or click on a link in an e-mail. These links may lead to a forged website where the user is asked to provide their username and password. This practice is called ‘phishing.’ Another example of social engineering is the scam that tries to convince a victim to send money.

Another type of Internet crime looks for vulnerabilities in legitimate software and attempts to install malware, or malicious software. E-mail links in the example above may direct the user to a website that installs malware.

A few examples: – Cybercriminals may hack into a number of social media accounts – Facebook, MySpace, etc. Then they capture the usernames and passwords of those accounts. That access provides them with the names and details of the ‘friends’ of those accounts. The cybercriminals may pretend to be the owner of the account holder, e-mail their friends with an imaginary emergency. They ask those friends to send money immediately to a specific address or account.

- Suppose the cybercriminals are able to sneak malware into your computer. This malware locates the user names and passwords of your bank accounts, as well as all your e-mail addresses from your address book. They then drain the money out of your bank accounts and send spam e-mails to everyone in your address book. The e-mails are in your name and attempt to infect them with the same malware.

- Maybe they’re able to download malware that opens a backdoor to your computer. More malware is then downloaded to take control your computer remotely. Without your knowledge it has then become a ‘bot’ or zombie,’ one of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of computers in a network known as a ‘botnet.’ Hundreds of botnets are known to exist. These botnets may be used by cybercriminals either to send out billions of spam messages per day or rented out to attack other websites, or even other countries.

Unfortunately these crimes earn the criminals money. The Anti-Phishing Working Group says estimates of direct losses due to phishing alone exceed $1 billion per year. That’s only one piece of Internet crime.

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