KIT111 Data Networks and Security

Cyber Security is the way to defend the computer, server, network, data and devices such as mobile, tablets from malicious attack (Sun, Hahn and Liu 2018). Cyber security is generally used by individuals and enterprises to protect against the attack and prevent getting access to the system (Carley et al. 2018). It is essential to have cyber security because the increase in number of users, devices and programs in organisation, having lots of data, including sensitive or confidential data. With the increase in the cyber attack and technique used in attacking, it has been necessary to have cyber security (Stevens 2016. ). It can be said that cyber security is the governance, development, management and use of Information security, OT security and IT security tools and technique for defending against the malicious attacks. In 2016, Australian cyber security strategy was set by the government’s plan to strength the cyber security. The strategy was funded with millions of dollars to build the foundation of cyber security and also to raise national awareness online.

Cyber crime is considered as an illegal activity Australia as well as across all countries. It targets or uses the user computer, or server or network devices in an unauthorized way (Yar and Steinmetz 2019). Cyber crime is generally done by hackers and even by organisations for their own person al benefits. Other than profits, they aim to damage the user system. There are various types of Cybercrime (Lallie et al. 2021). Some of them are Email fraud, stealing personal information of user, theft of card details, theft of business confidential data, Cyberextortion where attackers demand money to prevent the threated attack, Ransomware attacks, Crypto jacking and Cyberespionage (Fahlevi et al. 2019). In Cyber crime different types of malware and viruses are used to infect computer. They delete or steal the data from the infected computer with the help of these malware or viruses.

The Denial of Service (DoS) attack is type of Cyber crime where the user can not use it s machine or network or can not provide any service to its customer. And in some cases of cyber crime is that the user computer is used to commit crimes like spreading malware, illegal information or images. Also, most often, cyber criminal may user both types of attack at once. Initially, they may target the user computer with virus then use that infected computer to commit crime like spreading malware to another machine or network. Cyber criminals may also user Distributed Denial of Services (DDos) attack.

The Australian department of justice has marked this has a third category of cyber crime. This is so because the tool used to commit crime is computer. The example of this can be stealing user information with the help of computer. With the European convention of Cyber crime the Australia has an agreement. Its main use is to casts a wide net and there is huge amount of malicious computer-related crimes which it considers cybercrime. For example, data theft, compromising the network, violating copyright, gambling, selling or purchasing illegal item online and child pornography.

There are various types of Cyber crime attack  that are used by cyber criminals. Some of them are malware attacks, Phishing and Distributed Dos attacks.

Malware attacks is a type of attack where computer or network is infected with a virus or malware (Rudd et al. 2016). An infected computer can be user by cyber criminal for different purposes. These include data theft, unauthorized access to the confidential files, to do criminal activities or causing data damage (Rakotondravony et al. 2017). The most popular example of malware attack is WannaCry ransomware attack (Mohurle and Patil 2017). Here, Ransomware is a type of malware used to extort money by infecting the user system. In WannaCry ransomware attack, thousands of user system were affected. User were unable to get access to their data. So to get access to data, the user needs to pay a Bitcoin ransom to regain access. Globally, the WannaCry cyber crime cause billions of dollars losses financially (Zimba, Simukonda and Chishimba 2017).

Phishing is a cybercrime in which different types of user are target by contacting them with email, telephone or text message. The targeted user start providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords to cyber criminals unintentionally (Aleroud and Zhou 2017). In Australia, there has been several phishing attacks. A senior Australian government has showed that his phone was hacked through telegram messaging attack. The report suggest that the phishing scam was done to reveal the information like contact details of  pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong. Health Minister Greg Hunt’s office said in an emailed statement on Thursday that “a cyber security attempt to impersonate the minister has been referred to the Australian Federal Police and investigations are underway.”

 Spear-phishing is also an advance form of phishing where sensitive information is being stolen from targeted user. Sensitive data includes account credentials or financial information. The aim is to either infect devices with malware or force the targeted user to pay money to get back their data. Phishing and spear-phishing is a method of stealing important information by sending fraud messages to a targeted user. This is done through email or message platforms. To target Australians, they remain among the most common method used by malicious cyber criminals. While phishing messages are commonly sent out in their thousands, spear-phishing campaigns are typically aimed at a particular group of recipients (Akerlof and Shiller 2015).

Distributed DoS attacks is a type of cyber crime (Hui, Kim and Wang 2017). It is used to bring down the system or network. To make a successful DDos attack, cyber criminal does uses Internet pf thing devices. In other words, A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt or harm the normal traffic of a server, service or network. this done with a flooding of Internet traffic by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure (Sabillon et al. 2016). According to the latest NETSCOUT Arbor’s Active Threat Level Analysis System (ATLAS) Australian had thousands of DDos attack. A famous example of this type of attack is the 2017 DDoS attack on the UK National Lottery website. This brought the lottery’s website and mobile app offline, preventing UK citizens from playing.

There are many ways in which cyber crime can be avoided. The first way is by using internet security solutions. There are many antiviruses present online that provides real-time protection against existing and emerging malware including ransomware and viruses, and helps protect your private and financial information when user goes online. Anti-virus software allows user to scan, detect and remove threats before they become a problem. The second way is by using strong passwords. It is must to have strong passwords that other cannot guess and do not record them anywhere (Shoukat and Bashir 2018). A password management application can be used to keep their passwords secured. The third way is to keep the updated software.

Especially, the operating system and internet security software. As the cyber criminals tries to use exploit or flaws in the software to gain access to the user system. The fourth way is to manage the social media profile. It is essential to lock the personal and private information.  Social engineering cybercriminals can often get your personal information with just a few data points, so the less you share publicly, the better. The fifth way is to never open attachments in spam emails. This is the old way to infect the targeted computer through email attachments in spam emails. So, it is recommended to not open any attachment send by unknown sender. In addition, the user should also not click on any of the link provide by unknown sender. These are the technique through which cyber crime can be avoided.

In answering with the most advanced and dangerous threats to the nation the Australian Government will always play an essential role, but it is becoming more important for this to be supported through partnerships and collaboration with industry. It has been found that huge number of systems being operated at greater risk of malicious activity is increasing and therefore it is essential to increase the number of alliances between Government and industry. Earlier, Government used to focus on life necessary resources like food, water, health, energy, communications, transport, banking and the public sector. The government also need to focus on digital infrastructure, such as data centres and marketplaces created online. The ongoing and sustainable services to owners of this systems can be provided by government, then the cost may need to be gained through direct charges or other alternative funding models, despite being dependent on general taxation revenue.

Australians need to have adequate knowledge to make choices smarter. the products and services used by Australian, they should know when to ask for better features related to cyber security. And in practicing secure online behaviours Australians also need to be more consistent. In cybercrime, the behaviour of human is the most significant drawback that is being exploited. Due to lack of cyber security knowledge leads to successful attacks on targeted users. Using the technique such as phishing through emails as well as focusing on specific attacks such as spear phishing or whaling.

Over thousands of reports of Business Email Compromise attacks was revealed by The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre’s 2018 Crime Report. The losses were over US$1.2 billion that year alone. No one has the knowledge of cyber security. The user can only get to know about cybers security through education and learning while practicing it. But like all other forms of security, awareness is a complement to, not replacement for, the availability of secure features. For example,  vehicle comes with seat belts and driver need to use it begore driving. In addition, having the knowledge about the importance of road safety and incentives to use the seat belt. And the same expectations and requirements we have where safety is paramount should apply in cyberspace.

It can be concluded by saying that that cyber security is the governance, development, management and use of Information security, OT security and IT security tools and technique for defending against the malicious attacks. A new Cyber Security Strategy will take us to new levels, but it would not be able to solve all problems. All the complexities arising from the digital age Australia’s 2020 Cyber Security Strategy cannot be the solution for it. There are different ways to identify cyber security attack such as malware, DDos and Phishing. Still there are some of steps through which cyber attacks can be avoided. For better protection of Australians, a defined scope that focuses on the security of digital activity can make sure it can covey meaningful and required changes. Across the technology spectrum this acknowledges supportive pieces of work evolving within the Government of Australian.

References

Akerlof, G.A. and Shiller, R.J., 2015. Phishing for phools: The economics of manipulation and deception. Princeton University Press.

Aleroud, A. and Zhou, L., 2017. Phishing environments, techniques, and countermeasures: A survey. Computers & Security, 68, pp.160-196.

Carley, K.M., Cervone, G., Agarwal, N. and Liu, H., 2018, July. Social cyber-security. In International conference on social computing, behavioral-cultural modeling and prediction and behavior representation in modeling and simulation (pp. 389-394). Springer, Cham.

Fahlevi, M., Saparudin, M., Maemunah, S., Irma, D. and Ekhsan, M., 2019. Cybercrime Business Digital in Indonesia. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol. 125, p. 21001). EDP Sciences.

Hui, K.L., Kim, S.H. and Wang, Q.H., 2017. Cybercrime deterrence and international legislation: Evidence from distributed denial of service attacks. Mis Quarterly, 41(2), p.497.

Lallie, H.S., Shepherd, L.A., Nurse, J.R., Erola, A., Epiphaniou, G., Maple, C. and Bellekens, X., 2021. Cyber security in the age of covid-19: A timeline and analysis of cyber-crime and cyber-attacks during the pandemic. Computers & Security, 105, p.102248.

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.

Rakotondravony, N., Taubmann, B., Mandarawi, W., Weishäupl, E., Xu, P., Kolosnjaji, B., Protsenko, M., De Meer, H. and Reiser, H.P., 2017. Classifying malware attacks in IaaS cloud environments. Journal of Cloud Computing, 6(1), pp.1-12.

Rudd, E.M., Rozsa, A., Günther, M. and Boult, T.E., 2016. A survey of stealth malware attacks, mitigation measures, and steps toward autonomous open world solutions. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 19(2), pp.1145-1172.

Sabillon, R., Cano, J., Cavaller Reyes, V. and Serra Ruiz, J., 2016. Cybercrime and cybercriminals: A comprehensive study. International Journal of Computer Networks and Communications Security, 2016, 4 (6).

Shoukat, S. and Bashir, A., 2018. Cyber Crime-Techniques, Prevention and Cyber Insurance. International Journal of Computing and Network Technology, 6(01), pp.23-26.

Stevens, T., 2016. Cyber security and the politics of time. Cambridge University Press.

Sun, C.C., Hahn, A. and Liu, C.C., 2018. Cyber security of a power grid: State-of-the-art. International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, 99, pp.45-56.

Yar, M. and Steinmetz, K.F., 2019. Cybercrime and society. Sage.

Zimba, A., Simukonda, L. and Chishimba, M., 2017. Demystifying ransomware attacks: reverse engineering and dynamic malware analysis of wannacry for network and information security. Zambia ICT Journal, 1(1), pp.35-40.

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