5. Contents
• Introduction
• Types of Computer misuse
• How to prevent Computer misuse
• Computer misuse and Criminal law
• Real world Cases of Computer Misuse
6. Introduction
• 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.
• All these modern business processes are utilizing
computer software and hardware.
• 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
7. Types of Computer Misuse
• Computer misuse involves the use of computer
and network in attacking computers and
networks as well.
• One of the earliest and the most common types
of cybercrime activity is hacking.
• It roughly started in the 1960s.
• It involves stealing identities and important
information, violating privacy, and committing
fraud, among others.
8. Types of Computer Misuse
• Some of the most common types of computer
misuse are
• Fraud: Fraud is a general term used to
describe a cybercrime that intends to deceive
a person in order to gain important data or
information. Fraud can be done by altering,
destroying, stealing, or suppressing any
information to secure unlawful or unfair gain.
9. Types of Computer Misuse
• Hacking: Hacking involves the partial or
complete acquisition of certain functions
within a system, network, or website. It also
aims to access to important data and
information, breaching privacy. Most
“hackers” attack corporate and government
accounts.
10. Types of Computer Misuse
• Identity Theft: 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.
Through identity theft, criminals can steal
money. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS), more than 1.1 million
Americans are victimized by identity theft.
11. Types of Computer Misuse
• Scamming: Scam happens in a variety of forms. 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. Any illegal plans to make money falls to scamming.
• Computer Viruses: Most criminals take advantage of viruses
to gain unauthorized access to systems and steal important
data. Mostly, highly-skilled programs send viruses, malware,
and Trojan, among others to infect and destroy computers,
networks, and systems. Viruses can spread through removable
devices and the internet.
12. Types of Computer Misuse
• Ransomware: Ransom ware is one of the
most destructive malware-based attacks. It
enters your computer network and encrypts
files and information through public-key
encryption. In 2016, over 638 million
computer networks are affected by ransom
ware. In 2017, over $5 billion is lost due to
global ransom ware.
13. Types of Computer Misuse
• DDoS Attack: DDoS or the Distributed Denial of
Service attack is one of the most popular
methods of hacking. It temporarily or completely
interrupts servers and networks that are
successfully running. When the system is offline,
they compromise certain functions to make the
website unavailable for users. The main goal is
for users to pay attention to the DDoS attack,
giving hackers the chance to hack the system
14. Types of Computer Misuse
• Phishing: Phishers act like a legitimate
company or organization. They use “email
spoofing” to extract confidential information
such as credit card numbers, social security
number, passwords, etc. They send out
thousands of phishing emails carrying links to
fake websites. Users will believe these are
legitimate, thus entering their personal
information.
15. Types of Computer Misuse
• Malvertising: Malvertising is the method of
filling websites with advertisements carrying
malicious codes. Users will click these
advertisements, thinking they are legitimate.
Once they click these ads, they will be
redirected to fake websites or a file carrying
viruses and malware will automatically be
downloaded.
16. Types of Computer Misuse
• Cyberstalking: Cyberstalking involves
following a person online anonymously. The
stalker will virtually follow the victim,
including his or her activities. Most of the
victims of cyberstalking are women and
children being followed by men and
pedophiles.
17. Types of Computer Misuse
• Software Piracy: The internet is filled with
torrents and other programs that illegally
duplicate original content, including songs,
books, movies, albums, and software. This is a
crime as it translates to copyright
infringement. Due to software piracy,
companies and developers encounter huge
cut down in their income because their
products are illegally reproduced.
18. How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
• The most popular ways to prevent computer misuse
are
• 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.
19. How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
• Enable your system firewall
– Most operating systems include a full pre-
configured firewall to protect against malicious
packets from both the inside and the outside. A
system firewall will act as the first digital barrier
whenever someone tries to send a bad packet to
any of your open ports.
20. How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
• Use different/strong passwords
– Never use the same password on more than one
website, and always make sure it combines letters,
special characters and numbers.
– 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.
21. How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
• 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.
22. How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
• 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.
23. How to Prevent Computer Misuse???
• 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.
24. Computer Misuse and Criminal Law
• The Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA) is an act of
the UK Parliament passed in 1990.
• CMA is designed to frame legislation and controls
over computer crime and Internet fraud.
• The legislation was created to
– Criminalize unauthorized access to computer systems.
– 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
25. Computer Misuse and Criminal Law
• CMA introduced three criminal offences
– Accessing computer material without permission,
e.g. looking at someone else's files.
– 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.
– Altering computer data without permission, e.g.
writing a virus to destroy someone else's data, or
actually changing the money in an account.
26. Computer Misuse and Criminal Law
• These offences are punishable as follows
– Offence 1. Up to 6 months' prison and up to
£5,000 in fines.
– Offences 2 and 3. Up to 5 years in prison and any
size of fine (there is no limit).
28. WannaCry virus hits the NHS, 2017
• 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.
• The same hacking tools were used to attack world-wide freight company
FedEx and infected computers in 150 countries.
• Ransomware affectionately named "WannaCry" was delivered via email in
the form of an attachment.
• 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.
• As many as 300,000 computers were infected with the virus.
• 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 a number
of days.
29. Hackers steal £650 million
from global banks, 2015
• 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.
• The cyber criminals used malware to infiltrate banks'
computer systems and gather personal data
• They were then able to impersonate online bank staff to
authorise fraudulent transfers, and even order ATM
machines to dispense cash without a bank card.
• It was estimated that around £650 million was stolen from
the financial institutions in total.
30. One billion user accounts
stolen from Yahoo, 2013
• In one of the largest cases of data theft in history, Yahoo
had information from more than one billion user accounts
stolen in 2013.
• Personal information including names, phone numbers,
passwords and email addresses were taken from the
internet giant.
• Yahoo claimed at the time that no bank details were taken.
• 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.