Professional Practices

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Outline: 13_Computer Misuse and the Criminal Law

• Introduction
• Types of Computer misuse
• How to prevent Computer misuse
• Computer misuse and Criminal law
• Real world Cases of Computer Misuse

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 Introduction
ɞ Businesses, government and academic institutions are increasingly reliant
on the Internet for their day-to-day business, while consumers are using
e-commerce more and more for purchasing goods and services.
ɞ All these modern business processes are utilizing computer software and
hardware.
ɞ With increased use of computers, there has been a sharp rise in the
number of crimes involving computing; and the internet has undoubted
create new security risks

Types of Computer Misuse

ɞ Under the study of the English criminal law, the Law Commission highlighted
several categories of misuse of computers
ɞ Computer fraud
 Unauthorized obtaining of information from a computer
 Computer hacking
 Eavesdropping on a computer
 Making unauthorized use of computers for personal benefit

ɞ Unauthorized alteration or destruction of information stored on a computer

ɞ Denying access to an authorized user
ɞ The unauthorized removal of information stored on a computer

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 Types of Computer Misuse…
Computer Fraud:
ɞ Fraud is a general term used to describe a cybercrime that intends to
deceive a person in order to gain important data or information.
ɞ The Law Commission defined computer fraud as conduct which involves
the manipulation of a computer or internet, by whatever method, in order
dishonestly to obtain money, property, or some other advantage of value,
or to cause loss
ɞ Fraud can be done by altering, destroying, stealing, or suppressing any
information to secure unlawful or unfair gain.

Types of Computer Misuse

ɞ The second form of misuse identified by the Law Commission was
unauthorized obtaining of information from a computer.
ɞ It is sub-divided as:
ɞ hacking.
ɞ It roughly started in the 1960s.
ɞ Accessing a computer without the authorization of the owner.
ɞ In this case the person accesses the computer secretly for stealing
information, data or manipulation of data for diverse purposes

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 Types of Computer Misuse…
ɞ Hacking:
ɞ Hacking involves the partial or complete acquisition of certain functions within
a system, network, or website.
ɞ It also aims to access to important data and information, breaching privacy.
ɞ Most “hackers” attack corporate and government accounts.
ɞ Eavesdropping

ɞ Literal meaning listening or spying secretly

ɞ Unauthorized use of a computer for personal benefit Using computer’s authorized

information for personal benefits. In this case, the person misusing the computer is
usually employee or authorized user of the company

Types of Computer Misuse…

ɞ Identity Theft:
ɞ Identify theft is a specific form of fraud in which cybercriminals steal
personal data, including passwords, data about the bank account, credit
cards, debit cards, social security, and other sensitive information.
ɞ Through identity theft, criminals can steal money.
ɞ According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), more than 1.1
million Americans are victimized by identity theft.

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 Types of Computer Misuse…
ɞ Scamming:
ɞ Scam happens in a variety of forms.
ɞ In cyberspace, scamming can be done by offering computer repair,
network troubleshooting, and IT support services, forcing users to shell
out hundreds of money for cyber problems that do not even exist.
ɞ Any illegal plans to make money falls to scamming.

Types of Computer Misuse…

ɞ Computer Viruses:
ɞ Most criminals take advantage of viruses to gain unauthorized access to
systems and steal important data.
ɞ Mostly, highly-skilled programs send viruses, malware, and Trojan,
among others to infect and destroy computers, networks, and systems.
ɞ Viruses can spread through removable devices and the internet.

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 Types of Computer Misuse…
ɞ Ransomware:
ɞ Ransom ware is one of the most destructive malware-based attacks.
ɞ It enters your computer network and encrypts files and information
through public-key encryption.
ɞ In 2016, over 638 million computer networks are affected by ransom
ware.
ɞ In 2017, over $5 billion is lost due to global ransom ware.

Types of Computer Misuse…

ɞ DDoS Attack:
ɞ DDoS or the Distributed Denial of Service attack is one of the most
popular methods of hacking.
ɞ It temporarily or completely interrupts servers and networks that are
successfully running.
ɞ When the system is offline, they compromise certain functions to make
the website unavailable for users.
ɞ The main goal is for users to pay attention to the DDoS attack, giving
hackers the chance to hack the system

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 Types of Computer Misuse…
ɞ Phishing:
ɞ Phishers act like a legitimate company or organization.
ɞ They use “email spoofing” to extract confidential information such as
credit card numbers, social security number, passwords, etc.
ɞ They send out thousands of phishing emails carrying links to fake
websites.
ɞ Users will believe these are legitimate, thus entering their personal
information.

Types of Computer Misuse…

ɞ Malvertising:
ɞ Malvertising is the method of filling websites with advertisements
carrying malicious codes.
ɞ Users will click these advertisements, thinking they are legitimate.
ɞ Once they click these ads, they will be redirected to fake websites or a
file carrying viruses and malware will automatically be downloaded.

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 Types of Computer Misuse…
ɞ Cyberstalking:
ɞ Cyberstalking involves following a person online anonymously.
ɞ The stalker will virtually follow the victim, including his or her activities.
ɞ Most of the victims of cyberstalking are women and children being
followed by men and pedophiles.

Types of Computer Misuse…

ɞ Software Piracy:
ɞ The internet is filled with torrents and other programs that illegally
duplicate original content, including songs, books, movies, albums, and
software.
ɞ This is a crime as it translates to copyright infringement.
ɞ Due to software piracy, companies and developers encounter huge cut
down in their income because their products are illegally reproduced.

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 How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
ɞ The most popular ways to prevent computer misuse are
ɞ Keep your software updated
This is a critical requirement for any computer system and application.
Always keep your OS system, services and applications updated to
have the latest bugs and vulnerabilities patched.
This advice applies to smart phones, tablets, local desktop computers,
notebooks, online servers and all applications they run internally.

How to Prevent Computer Misuse???

ɞ Enable your system firewall
ɞ Most operating systems include a full pre-configured firewall to protect
against malicious packets from both the inside and the outside.
ɞ A system firewall will act as the first digital barrier whenever someone
tries to send a bad packet to any of your open ports.

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 How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
ɞ Use different/strong passwords
ɞ Never use the same password on more than one website, and always
make sure it combines letters, special characters and numbers.
ɞ The best way to sort this out is to use a password manager
like 1Password, LastPass or Keepass, which will help you generate
strong passwords for each website, and at the same time store them in an
encrypted database.

How to Prevent Computer Misuse???

ɞ Use antivirus and anti-malware software
This is an excellent measure for both desktop and corporate users.
Keeping antivirus and anti-malware software up to date and running
scans over local storage data is always recommended.
While free antivirus/antimalware solutions can be helpful they are
often merely trial software, and don’t offer full protection against most
common virus/malware and other network threats.

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 How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
ɞ Activate your email’s anti-spam blocking feature
A lot of computer hacking takes place whenever you open an
unsolicited email containing suspicious links or attachments.
First enable the anti-spam feature of your email client; and second
(and most important) never open links or attachments from unsolicited
recipients.
This will keep you safe from phishing attacks and unwanted
infections.

How to Prevent Computer Misuse???

ɞ Shop only from secure and well-known websites
To prevent you from being a victim of man-in-the-middle attacks and
crimes against your credit cards or online wallets, first make sure that
the site you’re shopping on is encrypted with HTTPS.
Also make sure you’re shopping on a well-known site, such as
Amazon, eBay, Walmart, etc.

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 Computer Misuse and Criminal Law
ɞ The Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA) is an act of the UK Parliament
passed in 1990.
ɞ CMA is designed to frame legislation and controls over computer crime
and Internet fraud.
ɞ The legislation was created to
ɞ Criminalize unauthorized access to computer systems.
ɞ Deter serious criminals from using a computer in the commission of a
criminal offence or seek to hinder or impair access to data stored in a
computer

Computer Misuse and Criminal Law

ɞ CMA introduced three criminal offences
ɞ Accessing computer material without permission, e.g., looking at
someone else's files.
ɞ Accessing computer material without permission with intent to commit
further criminal offences, e.g., hacking into the bank's computer and
wanting to increase the amount in your account.
ɞ Altering computer data without permission, e.g., writing a virus to
destroy someone else's data, or actually changing the money in an
account.

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 Computer Misuse and Criminal Law
ɞ These offences are punishable as follows
ɞ Offence 1. Up to 6 months' prison and up to £5,000 in fines.
ɞ Offences 2 and 3. Up to 5 years in prison and any size of fine (there is
no limit).

Real World Cases of Computer

Misuse

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 WannaCry virus hits the NHS, 2017
ɞ The most widespread cyber attack ever, hackers managed to gain access to the
NHS' computer system in mid-2017, causes chaos among the UK's medical
system.
ɞ The same hacking tools were used to attack world-wide freight company
FedEx and infected computers in 150 countries.
ɞ Ransomware affectionately named "WannaCry" was delivered via email in the
form of an attachment.
ɞ Once a user clicked on the attachment, the virus was spread through their
computer, locking up all of their files and demanding money before they could
be accessed again.
ɞ As many as 300,000 computers were infected with the virus.
ɞ It was only stopped when a 22-year-old security researcher from Devon
managed to find the kill switch, after the NHS had been down for several days.

Hackers steal £650 million from global banks, 2015

ɞ For a period of two years, ending in early 2015, a group of Russian-based
hackers managed to gain access to secure information from more than
100 institutions around the world.
ɞ The cyber criminals used malware to infiltrate banks' computer systems
and gather personal data
ɞ They were then able to impersonate online bank staff to authorize
fraudulent transfers, and even order ATM machines to dispense cash
without a bank card.
ɞ It was estimated that around £650 million was stolen from the financial
institutions in total.

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 One billion user accounts stolen from Yahoo, 2013
ɞ In one of the largest cases of data theft in history, Yahoo had information
from more than one billion user accounts stolen in 2013.
ɞ Personal information including names, phone numbers, passwords and
email addresses were taken from the internet giant.
ɞ Yahoo claimed at the time that no bank details were taken.
ɞ Releasing information of the breach in 2016, it was the second time
Yahoo had been targeted by hackers, after the accounts of nearly 500
million users were accessed in 2014.

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