Cyberterrorism

Cyberterrorism is defined as” the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change” through the use of online activity. Johnalan Brickley in his article in the CTC (Combating Terrorism Centre) Sentinel, quoted Bruce Hoffman who is the author of the above definition for Cyberterrorism, that this definition can be further expanded “to conduct, enabling, disruptive and destructive militant operations in Cyberspace to create fear among people”.

According to Ekran Systems blog of July 2016”Cyberterrorism has become a serious issue for all government and public/private organisations. From looking at the statistics, it can be clearly seen that data breaches are extremely common. Globally I in 4 companies have been hit by data breaches in 2017. Ransomware has also been a major factor in the Cybersecurity landscape. Ransomware is basically a type of malicious software from crypt virology that threatens to publish the victim’s data or perpetually block their access to it until a sum of money or a ransom is paid to the aggressor. The amount of damage done is shocking. !393 data breaches were responsible for exposing more than 174Million confidential records in USA. The cost of these data breaches have increased across many different industries such as healthcare 7%, Finance 10.9% and technological industries 13.8% By 2021`the cost of Cyber-crime is expected to reach 6 Trillion Dollars annually. Malicious attacks insiders in organisations are the most costly. In 2016 insiders were responsible for 55% of all cyber-attacks. According to a global economic survey in 2016, only 37% of companies have an incident plan in place to to combat the threat of Cyber-attack. 80% of businesses believe that they will be affected by Cyber-crime in 2018. 69% of small and medium sized companies do not have sufficient financial resources to defend themselves against cyber security threats.

When ordinary people think of cyber-attacks, they are mostly concerned about personal bank and password details and do not think of conventional terrorist attacks. They picture a terrorist attack as consisting of a bombing or shooting event rather than a data cyber breach. Terrorists seek to cause mental anguish as well as physical destruction and research shows that the psychological effects of cyberterrorism can match the effects of traditional terrorist activity. From studying cyberterrorism, I believe Cyber-attacks by terrorists can achieve the same goal as conventional terrorism and if people or organisations do not take appropriate measures against cyber-attacks, society will suffer significant harm

 

Online Fraud

Online fraud is a related area of cybercrime. Internet or online fraud refers to fraud that is committed with the help of the internet. Online services are used to conduct fraudulent solicitations, fraudulent transactions and to transmit the proceeds of fraud to financial institutions. Online fraud can be committed on websites, message boards. From looking at current statistics, it is evident that online crime has emerged as a significant concern to all internet users. According to an article in the Irish Times date Wednesday February 11^th 2015, 13 per cent of Irish internet users have suffered online fraud , one third of Irish respondent to the Irish times survey said they had found malicious software on their devices. Of this significant number of Irish internet users only 50 per cent of those users had installed appropriate antivirus software. This figure is below the European average of 61 per cent of internet users who utilise adequate antivirus software. In comparison with other European states, Poland has the highest percentage of online fraud at 19 per cent while Greece has the lowest online fraud rate at 4 per cent.

Online fraud consist of many different types of criminal fraud including Phishing which is the most common at spoofing. Phishing is the process of collecting personal data through emails or websites. This information can include user names, password, credit cards numbers, social security numbers etc. Spoofing consists of events in which a person or software programme successfully masquerades as another by falsify data and in the process gaining an illegitimate advantage.

Email Spoofing or Phishing is used by dishonest advertisers and criminals when emails are sent with falsified entry to entice email recipients’ in to believing that the email is sent from a relivable source eg bank and they are prompted to disclose personal information such as bank account details. In a caller id attack the Spoofers will falsify the phone number they are calling from. Url Spoofing occurs when scammers set up websites to obtain information from its victims or to install viruses on their computers. Eg A person might be directed to a site which allegedly is a credit card company site. The victim that believes the site to be legitimate inputs their personal finical details on the request of the dummy site. In this way the scammer then gains direct access to accounts etc.

Online crime does not only effect big business but smaller and private individuals are also hurt by these criminal activities. There are numerous effects and consequences as a result of online crime

• Businesses lose customers as a result of online criminal activtity
• Company assets can be lost due to theft
• An organisation’s reputations can be injured publically as the publicity surrounding online crime becomes known
• Organisations and businesses can face lawsuits from disgruntled customers who have experienced loss due to online crime.
• The cost of online security and training is prohibitive.
   
  To prevent online crime businesses or organisations and indeed private individuals should invest in appropriate online protection such as, use of security information and event management solutions, intrusion prevention systems and network intelligence systems and data analytics. These all can greatly reduce the costs and damage damage caused by cyber attacks. Online crime is  investigated in Ireland by the Garda national economic crime bureau. When one suspects that there has been an online crime or an attempt to commit one the matter should be immediately reported to your local garda station and relevant institution. It is without doubt that online fraud is an emerging menace to both public and private enterprise. It is essential that all internet users beware all the threat of online fraud and arm themselves with adequate measures to combat this threat.
   

Cyber-bullying,the scourge of Youth

Cyber-bullying has in the past ten years, evolved in to a very serious issue, for young persons, for parents, for teachers and for state services. Cyber-bullying is defined as the use of electronic communication to bully a person, usually by sending messages which are intimidating or threatening to another person.
From looking at statistics at http://www.bullyingstatistics.org/content/cyber-bullying-statistics.html it can be shown that Cyber-bullying is more of a problem among teenagers. Cyber-bullying can take many different forms. Unlike standard bullying, it can affect its victims anywhere and anytime. The victim may not know who is sending the abusive or threatening messages.
The forms of Cyber-bullying can include

• sending mean or threatening messages to a persons email/mobile telephone
• spreading rumours online or via text messages
• posting hurtful or threatening messages on social media sites e.g. Facebook,Twitter,snapchat etc.
• stealing a persons account in order to send abusive or threatening messages
• pretending to be someone else to hurt another person online.

The effects on victims of cyber-bullying include Anxiety,Depression and more seriously can and has led to suicide. There have been numerous cases of such suicides among adolescents in Ireland which have received prominent media attention. Cyber-bullying can be of a continuous nature or may occur infrequently but the victim is always in fear of the next contact. To persons responsible and participating in cyber-bullying,some feel that their actions are funny and do not understand the seriousness of their actions or the pain and sometimes the tragic consequences suffered by victims and their families due to cyber-bullying. It is for this reason that we all have a responsibility while on line to be aware of what we are saying and how we say it.
According to Cyber-bullying statistics gathered in America from the I-Safe Foundation, over half of teenagers or adolescents have experienced online bullying and about the same percentage have also admitted to having engaged in cyber-bullying to any degree. The study found that at least 1 in three teens or adolescents have received cyber threats online. A worrying statistic revealed by the research of the I-Safe Foundation was that well over 50% of young victims do not inform their parents that they are or have been bullied online and instead have suffered in silence.
There are many avenues open today to assist parents, adolescents and teachers to reduce the rate of cyber-bullying

• Talks can be given to teenagers to explain the impact of cyber-bullying and by explaining the serious consequences of cyber-bullying for both victims and perpetrators.
• Encourage victims to open up and tell parents or appropriate adults about their problem.
• Teens should retain the offending messages as proof and show them to their parents.
• Efforts should be made to block the sender of the offensive messages by changing account details etc.
• Teenagers and all users online should keep their online passwords private and only divulge to their parents.
• All online users should not upload any information which they would not to be made public knowledge. 
• Teenagers should not have access to online activity in private spaces at home but only in open family space in the home.
• Parents should supervise teenagers online activity and limit the level of access to adult sites with locks etc.

Parents may if desired deny their children to have smart phones for their personal use until they have reached a certain age.
In respect of this last point, Primary and second level schools in Ireland were recently issued advice from the Irish government to look at the issue o students being denied access to smart phones etc at school.
This area of the debate on cyber-bullying may prove very contentious and we await further developments.https://www.webwise.ie/parents/ask-fm-a-guide-for-parents-and-teachers-2/https: