PICT2001 Cybercrime

Introduction

Cyber threat or crime can be referred to as a crime, which includes a network and a computer. The system might be utilized in the commission of a crime or it might be the target. This type of crime can even cause harm to the financial health and security aspects of any specific individual (Broadhurst et al. 2018). There are several types of privacy concerns for cyber related crime when the confidential or sensitive information is being intercepted or disclosed, by considering lawfully. The non state actors and the government have been engaged in such crimes like financial theft, espionage and even different cross border crimes. Moreover, this type of crime or threat can also cross international borders and can be termed as responsible for creating cyber warfare, by an inclusion of espionage, financial theft, ransomware attacks and many more (Chaudhry 2017). The following essay outlines a brief discussion on the benefits of outlawing of payments within ransomware attacks with a critical evaluation of the effectiveness of this strategy.

Ransomware Attacks

Ransomware can be referred to as type of malicious software or malware, which threatens for publishing or blocking accessibility to the data or a computerized system, by encrypting it, until and unless the victim pays a specific ransom fee to the attacker. This specific ransom demand comes with a deadline (Mohurle and Patil 2017). As soon as the deadline is over, the user loses the data. The hackers either delete the data forever or they sell it on the dark net. Ransomware attacks have a strong connection with the dark net and it is needed to ensure that suitable steps and strategies are undertaken for reducing the negative impacts of such crime or attacks in a successful manner.

The technologies of encryption or decryption are being included in the ransomware attacks and hence these attacks have been common in present days. The attackers have grown extremely creative over the years, by requiring payments, which are almost impossible to trace that helps these criminals in remaining anonymous in nature and the growth of crypto currencies have occurred to a high level (Aidan, Verma and Awasthi 2017). Hence, these attackers can easily verify and secure the transactions and control the creation of new units. The attack has highlighted the potential damages and risks of ransomware.

Benefits of Outlawing of Payments in Ransomware Attacks

A cyber threat or crime spree wreaking havoc within the world has eventually reignited calls for the countries’ governments for banning ransom payments to the hackers. Ransomware criminals are holding up computerized systems hostage on a regular basis and hence demanding larger payments from the victims for restoration of order (Dey and Lahiri 2021). Hence, it can be referred to as the most vital and significant attribute, which can outlaw the ransomware payments accordingly. The law enforcement agencies in the world are incrementing majorly and hence urging the victims not to make payments. It takes up time, education as well as sustained investment and hence prohibition of payments for completing the aspects at once. Various businesses might consider making a payment in secret that would then place them even further at the involvement of the criminals, who could threaten to publicize it.

Ransomware attacks are mainly successful with the involvement of payments and the hackers are able to gain success in such circumstances as they are able to extract maximum payment from the users (Meland, Bayoumy and Sindre 2020). As a result, it is needed to ensure that the process of making payments for the ransomware attacks should be outlawed or made illegal, so that the customers do not make such payments and the governments are able to secure the confidentiality of the data in a successful manner, without any kind of complexity or issue. There are some of the major and the most significant benefits to outlaw the process of payments in ransomware attacks and hence ensure that the respective organization would be safe and secured successfully and these distinct benefits are provided in the following paragraphs:

1. i) The first and the foremost benefit of outlawing the payments of ransomware attack would be that the hackers would not get the payment and they would not be indulging any similar activities in future ( 2021). A group of hackers take up the cyber threat or crime of ransomware attack for ensuring that they are gaining maximum financial advantages from such process. They demand a huge amount of money in crypto currencies from the businesses. As a result, they are able to get involved in other illegal and unethical activities with the involvement of these payments and also create maximum destruction to the society and users in a successful manner. This specific process is needed to be stopped and it is possible with outlawing the payments of ransomware attacks accordingly (Young and Yung 2017). Moreover, the social engineering attackers have become highly innovative over time and the new victims of ransomware often install the link as well as pay a ransom for having the files decrypted majorly.
2. ii) The second vital and significant benefit of outlawing the payments of ransomware attack would be stopping criminal activities completely. The present laws for criminalization often ensure that since the country is facing major data breaches, there could be high chances for financial losses (Broadhead 2018). Hence, the payments of ransomware should be outlawed, so that the under developed or developing countries like India, Africa and many more do not face any major financial impacts and the confidential data is safe and secured. It is needed to follow the rules and regulations for helping the members in understanding the expectation of them and the negative impacts that would be occurring when these rules are not maintained. It also makes a stabilized cyber environment for the ransomware attacks and also focus on the vital attributes and aspects that are needed to be emphasized.
3. The next major and significant advantage of outlawing the payments of ransomware attack would be that the respective organization would not be facing any further cyber breaches and the number of data breaches is lowered eventually (Krüger and Seitz 2017). The data breach is the subsequent incident, in which information is being stolen or taken from the systems without any kind of authorization or knowledge of the owner of this system. The hackers target larger and popular organizations for conducting such attacks, so that they are able to get the payments easily and there would not be any obstacle. Moreover, these distinct organizations also comprise of high level of data history for transactions and their business related information and hence they are bound to complete the payment for ensuring that their confidential data is saved and issues are avoided (Hoy 2017). Hence, the outlawing of the payment of ransomware attacks would make sure that the total number of data breaches would be reduced to a high level and hence the organizational management and the government would be benefitted.

Critical Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the Strategy         

The strategy for outlawing the payments of ransomware attacks would be extremely effective and significant for ensuring that reputational and financial damages of the organizations are avoided and eradicated to a high level from any kind of service interruption. A ransom payment is often an economically rational decision of the respective organization or government and hence they try to ensure that their confidential data or information is being safe and secured, under every circumstance (Smith 2017). The utility of the tactic would be reinforced successfully and a long term benefit would be obtained, without any kind of complexity or issue. Compliance is the driver in cyber security and it would be compliant with proper standards, laws and regulations, which could put ransomware out of business eventually. When the user or the victim make the payment to the attacker, it is being noticed that an equilibrium is observed in addressing the economic externalities and hence public welfare is reduced to a high level.

Ransomware attacks have changed for increasing the vulnerabilities accordingly and hence the risks have increased to a high level. The hackers often user other computer based crimes like cybersquatting for such purposes and they eventually purchase a domain name of other company with the major intention to sell it them and it can occur in the earlier stages of the Internet and adequate checks are noted successfully (Klimek 2020). Hence, as soon as the victim clicks on the website or domain link, the systems or data gets hacked successfully and the creation of malware or the knowing distribution of it is a crime. The stakes of ransomware attacks are getting increased and it would be needed to consider the ransom by the hackers accordingly, so that this type of cyber threat or crime would be avoided.

The payment ban or outlawing would also take off the huge financial burden off several companies and they would be benefitted majorly. These payments are responsible for begetting more attacks and also reinforcing the utility of the tactic and a wide scale economic disruption would be stopped successfully (Dolliver and Poorman 2018). The service interruptions would also be avoided and potential for loss of life can be successfully eradicated, without any kind of complexity or issue. It is required to break the subsequent cycle and deprive the ransomware ecosystem of fuel. Moreover, such outlawing or payment ban can also remove the burden of paying ransom for all companies and this would be removing payment as the legal possibility successfully. Hence, the most well designed prohibitions can provide targeted companies with leverage to push back against the attackers.

Outlawing the payments of ransomware attacks should be put by the governments of every country, so that they are able to establish an effective victim support mechanism, without any error. It should be a specific part of the broad based campaign for improving the prevention, deterrence, response and disruption and the potential huge cost companies have attacked in a transition period that is often faced by the respective organizational management and the government of the country (Zakaria, Kunhibawa and Munir 2018). As a result, the huge pressure of managing the negative impacts would be managed and service would be restored accordingly. Hence, for payment outlawing in the ransomware attacks, it would be easier to obtain the intended effects and the governments would comprise of providing companies with a constant support and resource for managing the attacks successfully.

Outlawing the payments of ransomware attacks is also needed for ensuring that the respective organization or agency is free from the forced action of paying off the payment and securing the data or information. The involvement of high level of data security techniques and processes would be needed for such process, so that it becomes extremely difficult for the attackers to get into the system and hack the data or information for ransomware attacks. The high level of protection would be ensuring that the process is safe and secured and data management is done in an effective methodology (Ozkaya and Islam 2019). The entire cyber threat or crime would be reduced to a distinct level and maximum cyber security is prevailed, without any issue or complexity. As a result, law enforcement would be highly effective and every negative impact would be eradicated. Moreover, the demands of the attackers are needed to be emphasized for checking the aspects and breaches accordingly.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that there are several benefits of outlawing of payments in ransomware attacks. This type of crime is termed as a financial fraud crime. Computer fraud is a dishonest misrepresentation of the facts, intended for letting another to do or refrain from doing any aspect that causes major loses. Ransomware attacks can also cause cyber terrorism and the security specialists would have to consider about including the most advanced laws and regulations and procedures to reduce the negative impact of cyber crime and threats in a successful manner. The above provided essay has properly described about the benefits of outlawing the payments of ransomware attacks with the effectiveness of strategy in details.

References

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Broadhead, S., (2018). The contemporary cybercrime ecosystem: A multi-disciplinary overview of the state of affairs and developments. Computer Law & Security Review, 34(6), pp.1180-1196.

Broadhurst, R., Lord, D., Maxim, D., Woodford-Smith, H., Johnston, C., Chung, H.W., Carroll, S., Trivedi, H. and Sabol, B., (2018). Malware trends on ‘darknet’crypto-markets: Research review. Available at SSRN 3226758.

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Meland, P.H., Bayoumy, Y.F.F. and Sindre, G., (2020). The Ransomware-as-a-Service economy within the darknet. Computers & Security, 92, p.101762.

Mohurle, S. and Patil, M., (2017). A brief study of wannacry threat: Ransomware attack 2017. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, 8(5), pp.1938-1940.

Ozkaya, E. and Islam, R., (2019). Inside the dark web. CRC Press.

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