Before cybercrime became so ubiquitous, what criminals do as at then, was to scan through people’s trash and paper bin or intercept their mail to steal their personal information.
The case is different today because all those information are now available on the web. So, it’s easier to collate this information and work with them.
Cybercrime is getting more sophisticated and more strategic by using the internet to break through people’s identities. Perhaps hack into their accounts, or even trick them to reveal classified and confidential or infect their devices with malware.
The dynamics of cyber criminality is ever changing. When you take a critical look, you will understand why cyber criminals have stretched out their operations into the cyberspace.
Globally, the nature of the Internet and the inadequate effective cross-border or even proper legislation has made cybercrime relatively risk-free compared to other forms crimes.
When it comes to cybercrime, on the other hand, the chances of getting caught, of being prosecuted or convicted, or of serving a full sentence is minimal.
Here are a few types of attacks cybercriminals use to commit crimes:
Botnet – A network of private computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the owners’ knowledge, e.g., to send spam messages.
Fast Flux – Fast flux is a DNS technique used by botnets to hide phishing and malware delivery sites behind an ever-changing network of compromised hosts acting as proxies
Phishing – the fraudulent practice of sending emails purporting to be from reputable companies to induce individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
PhishMe, an anti-phishing vendor reported a dramatic increase in the number of phishing emails deploying ransomware payloads over the course of Q1 2016.
During March, 93% of the phishing emails they collected intended to infect victims with ransomware.
According to Cloudmark survey, companies hit by a successful spear phishing attack in the past 12 months suffered an average financial cost of $1.6 million.
Over a third of the respondents to a recent survey by AlienVault reported their executives have fallen victim to a CEO fraud email, and over 80 percent believed their executives could fall for targeted phishing scams in the future. Those concerns are well-founded. More than 50 organizations, including Snapchat and Care.com, were successfully targeted by CEO fraud emails asking for W-2 information this past tax season alone
Zombie Computer – This is a computer that has been hacked into and is used to launch malicious attacks or to become part of a botnet.
Social Spam – is unwanted spam content appearing on social networks and any website with user-generated content (comments, chat, etc.). It can appear in many forms, including bulk messages, profanity, insults, hate speech, malicious links, fraudulent reviews, fake friends, and personally identifiable information
Social Engineering – using lies and manipulation to trick people into revealing their personal information. Phishing is a form of social engineering.
According to researchers 99.7% of documents used in attachment-based campaigns relied on social engineering and macros, rather than automated exploits. Some 98% of URLs in malicious messages link to hosted malware, either as an executable or an executable inside an archive
Denial-of-Service Attacks – This is a type of attack on a network that is designed to bring the network to its knees by flooding it with useless traffic. Many DoS attacks, such as the Ping of Death and Teardrop attacks, exploit limitations in the TCP/IP protocols
Skimmers – Cyber criminals usually use series of devices to steal credit card information by getting the card. When the card is out of the owner’s view or possession, what the cybercriminals do is to take the information, this usually happens in stores or restaurants. After, taking the credit card information is either sold online through a criminal community.
When you become aware of these cybercrime techniques, it becomes a bit easier to figure out ways to prevent the.
