Discuss About The Computer Science Electronics Engineering.
The internet development has facilitated growth in all aspects of life. In healthcare, agriculture, education, business and tourism. The purpose of this essay is to determine whether the private company and the government should hack back when attacked by hackers. The aim is to facilitate policy development on how to deal with cyber-crimes. As recommended, governments and the internet security bodies should develop policies relevant to protect the internet users from cyber-crimes.
Internet which is an interconnection of computers internationally has brought tremendous development in the world. It has facilitated communication from any point within the globe. Actually, it has made the world a global village. It has become easy to interact with people from far by just a click of button. Job applications and universities admissions in international school have become the order of the day. These processes that were previously impossible due to distance limitations, is now easily available by just being connected. Companies have been in a position to market their products by creating websites and providing information about their products. This has facilitated online buying and selling and hence providing a wider market for the sellers and a wide variety of products for the buyers. As stated by Wirtz, Schike and Ullrich (2010), the availability of information in the internet has enabled businesses to learn business models that steer them to achieving their goals and realizing great profits (p. 274). Internet has also brought about growth in the education sector. Acquiring a degree through distance learning is the order of the day. Through Skype a lecturer from far can conduct a lesson effectively, sharing of educational materials from different places have been easy through emails. Students are in a position to acquire scientific journals and articles with ease. Scientific research has been facilitated by the internet development. As according to Albatch (2015), the internet has linked academic institutions globally. This has steered education to greater heights and produced quality professionals.
Governments have also digitalized the citizens’ services due to internet development. Citizens are in a position to file their taxes, acquire identification cards, apply for passports, acquire birth and death certificates without visiting government offices. The citizens’ information is stored in government database and they can be accessed whenever needed without having to manually checking through files. In UK, the government is in a position to manage traffic, automobile pollution, detect flooding and earthquakes by the use of internet (Poser and Dransh 2010, p. 92). The disaster information obtained by the government through internet has helped them to warn the citizens and also to prepare prior to the occurrence of the disaster or if possible, avoid it. The internet has also promoted the tourism sector (Buhalis and Law 2008, p.610). It has become easy to find information about a tourism operator in the internet. Tourist can now book for accommodation without having to call to the embassy as there before. It also provides a wide range of information of the places that one can visit and therefore making it easy to make a decision. In the agricultural sector, internet has brought great developments. The farmers are in a position to learn on good agricultural practices, know the right pesticides, learn about climate change and how to facilitate their economic activities even during this era where climate change has become more pronounced. The farmers are also able to find market for their products and also be in a position to track the progress of the transactions undertaken.
As asserted by Campbell (2011), religious groups use computers to facilitate new forms of meeting and creating “community” online. As it was in early 21st century where in some countries for instance In Arabic countries where Christians did not have freedom of worship or reading the Bible, the internet has enabled communication that facilitates accessibility of religious materials and information easily. Bible and Quran and other religious books applications have been developed and can be accessed with a Smartphone. These online technologies facilitate growth in faith and have shaped the communities (Cheong, Poon, Huang and Casas 2009, p, 295). The development of internet has enabled banks to digitalize their services. Creating an account, having access to your money, learning about the bank services, and borrowing a loan just need a click of a button. This has reduced the time for queuing in the long queues in the banks. Use of credit and debit cards in the purchasing of goods is possible by use of internet connection. Customers are able to determine the progress of their banks by checking on the information provided in the banks websites. Information about foreign exchange rate is easily accessible by logging into the website. It has also facilitated the development of forex trading (Sazuka, Inoue and Scalas 2009, p.2842). Through internet many has been able to acquire employment. Jobs from home that are widely available for example typing jobs, data entry, conducting surveys and report writing jobs are easily available in the internet. This has boosted the economic status of countries and the living standards of people.
However, the internet has also lead to increase in crime. Cyber crime that has become common and uncontrollable and has led to many businesses, individuals and government losing millions of money and huge information. The ability to hack, damage and destroy computer system or network by the criminals has been a challenge to many institutions and organization. As stated by Suo, Wan, Zou and Liu (2012), internet of things (IoT) has faced security and privacy challenges (p. 649). The cyber criminals use various techniques to compromise the computer system and destroy or damage the privacy.
Hacking. This is a common type of cybercrime. It is mostly executed by programmers who have knowledge on software (Himma 2007). They access computer systems without permission. Information about a business strategy, financial status, customers’ personal information is usually stolen and used for frauds.
Identity theft is a crime where user’s private information is stolen and used for wrong purposes. For example, doing transactions under the victim’s name, spreading wrong or unwanted information about the victim or even asking for money from victim’s families and friend. This can be avoided by ensuring that personal information is well protected. For example, ATM and credit cards information that are mostly obtained when a person is contacted by the criminals and one provide the information without being aware of the end user.
Phishing is a cybercrime where the unsuspecting user is led to clicking into emails or links that at the end access their logging information and eventually provides the bank account information. This information is used to access money from the victims account. As according to Kirda and Kruegal (2005), this crime has increased due to the high number of internet users lacking information about the crime.
Ransomware crime has increased in the recent days. A person computer or system is infected and the files are encrypted and the public encryption key remains with the criminal. As stated by Richet (2016), the ransomware locks the victims screen with images, documents and music. The perpetrators ask for payment for the recovery of the information. Many banks and businesses have fallen into this trap. It leads to loss of quality information if one does not comply with the criminal.
Scams crime is usually performed via emails. A victim receives a message with a seducing offer which prompts him to send money for the offer to be activated or for him to receive the offer. The perpetrator then goes missing after receiving the money. Human elements such as easy manipulation have highly contributed to these crimes as compared to technology failure (Muscanell, Guadagno and Murphy 2014, p. 390).
Distributed denial of service (DDOs) is an attack where a computer system for example servers and website deny service. The frequent pop up of messages in the user’s screen tends to slow down the system which can eventually lead to its break down. These highly contribute to loss of information for organizations and individual who don’t back up their information.
Virus attacks are common in an internet connection. Malwares are spread and installed in a victim computer. Some replicates and other hides within the system until they fully destroy the files and make them inaccessible. Sources of the viruses include email attachments, downloadable programs, cracked software and the internet. As according to Adeyinka (2008), virus scanners and other protective software can be used to protect computers from the virus attack (p.81).
Cybercrime has led to huge losses at individual, organization and governmental levels. Loss of valuable information by researchers, students, professionals, organizations and the government, use of a lot of money paying the criminals that they can give you access to your information after they have denied you access and many losing their jobs due to such crimes are the mostly experienced challenges. As researches have indicated that people with low self-control are easily lured to these crimes everyone is prone to it (Bossler and Holt 2010, p. 233). Personal information that is accessed by the criminals via the internet when used wrongly a person may end up in jail. Since the information is mostly used in frauding other people for example in making deals which are not real and people ending up being conned. This may attract legal actions that may attract penalties to the individual whose information was used in the deal rather than the criminal involved. A business or an organization website when attacked with virus, it may lead to malfunctioning or completely breakdown of the system. This makes their customers unable to receive online services from the business and hence the business is prone to losing customers. The cost of maintaining or installing another system is usually high and therefore the organization faces losses due to extra expenses. Businesses that support online purchasing may be blamed by the customers when their personal information is accessed by the criminals (Pratt, Holtfreter and Resig 2010, p. 233). This may spoil the image of the business and eventually have negative impacts on its profits. The government can face blackmail when their system has been hacked. This compromises their operations and they may undergo huge losses in the process of persuading the hackers or the criminals. The government or organization may find itself hiring the hackers for security purposes who normally request huge payments. This affects the economic status of the country. Therefore, it is important to find measure to avoid these cyber crimes and have policies that protect individuals from these crimes.
Due to the high losses faced by the organizations and the government in cybercrimes, they are usually not able to counter strike or retaliate against the attackers. As according to Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), a person is not allowed to access another person’s computer without permission or exceeding authorized access. Normally, the act calls for implementation of the law rather than hacking back. That is, criminals when identified should be persecuted.However, evidence has indicated that some companies have tried the hack back after failed attempts to stop the hacking process by blocking the criminal computer from operating (West 2012, p. 119). The hack back is not recommended since it can lead to damage of other people properties or companies. For example, as observed when the Microsoft system was hacked, the internet providers the vitalwerks company suffered losses though they were not in collaboration with the hacker. Such impacts can affect the activity of the companies and cost them a lot of money in persuading the hackers. In most cases, the hackers are not traceable. This may cost an organization or the government in the process of hacking back as compared to the reward of the process. For companies which are not well established it will be difficult for them to hack back especially if the hacking was done by a corporate company since the cost is high. Also, these companies may lack relevant expertise to do the hacking back process which may end up damaging the company’s properties or information and hence huge losses. As according to Lasiello (2014), hacking back is not the right solution to cybercrimes (p.105). Though the cyber attacks have been highly focused on companies rather than the government (Lin, Allhoff and Abney 2014, p. 42), the government has put fewer efforts in saving companies from such crime attacks.
However, this policy of retaliating against a cyber attack and destructively counter striking against the attackers will not protect critical services from damage because the world is full of hackers. Most hackers are people with programming knowledge, each year universities are producing graduands where by, most of them are in this field of programming. Therefore, an attack of one or several cyber criminals will be insignificant. As stated by Brill and Smolanoff (2017), that the cyber terrorists are increasingly developing sophisticated weapons, the risk or reward equation is complex in the hack back process and must be considered before it is implemented. As reported by Perlroth (2013), after the Chinese hackers had access to the United States websites and performed some manipulations, the United States were in a position to block the hackers through the help of Times and the security network. However, the hackers were in a position to access the websites again even after being blocked. This indicates that hack back cannot full insulate critical services from damage. Therefore, relevant policies should be developed to fight against cybercrimes.
Since we are all prone to these cyber-attacks. It is important to learn and adapt these methods of protecting oneself. You should ensure that your computer has an antivirus software. This helps to protect from possible attacks from viruses. When logging into emails one should use strong passwords by combining letters, numeric and symbols to strengthen it. The computer should be installed with the latest updates. A computer operating with an old operating system makes it prone to these attacks. The updated operating system ensures that the computer is safe and it is difficult to be attacked. The information stored in the computer should be regularly backed up. Backing up can be done in external storage or cloud storage. This ensures that whenever a computer is attacked, one will be able to retrieve the information. This is especially fundamental for companies and businesses. Individuals, companies and the government should store their financial details privately. This is possible by using another laptop or computer that does not use internet frequently. This ensures that even after a computer is hacked the financial information will not be accessed. Finally, when using the internet, one should be careful to use secure websites and avoid downloading applications that are not genuine.
Conclusion
The internet technology though beneficial, it faces insecurity challenges. A Cyber crime that has led to huge losses of money and time for organizations has become uncontrollable. Though hacking is beneficial for organizations to ensure that their systems are safe, when used with a wrong motive like blackmailing, fraud, and other personal interest it becomes dangerous. Though some companies have tried the hack back, research has indicated that this is not a good solution for cybercrimes. And it does not insulate critical services from harm or destruction. Therefore, effective policies should be developed by relevant internet security bodies to protect internet users from these crimes.
Reference
Adeyinka, O., 2008, May. Internet attack methods and internet security technology. In Modeling & Simulation, 2008. AICMS 08. Second Asia International Conference on (pp. 77-82). IEEE.
Altbach, P., 2015. Higher education and the WTO: Globalization run amok. International Higher Education, (23).
Bossler, A.M. and Holt, T.J., 2010. The effect of self-control on victimization in the cyberworld. Journal of Criminal Justice, 38(3), pp.227-236.
Brill, A. and Smolanoff, J., 2017. Hacking Back Against Cyberterrorists: Could You? Should You?.
Buhalis, D. and Law, R., 2008. Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research. Tourism management, 29(4), pp.609-623.
Campbell, H., 2011. Internet and religion. The handbook of internet studies, 11, pp.232-250.
Cheong, P.H., Poon, J.P., Huang, S. and Casas, I., 2009. The Internet highway and religious communities: Mapping and contesting spaces in religion-online. The Information Society, 25(5), pp.291-302.
Himma, K.E., 2007. Internet security: Hacking, counterhacking, and society. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Iasiello, E., 2014. Hacking back: Not the right solution. Parameters, 44(3), p.105.
Kirda, E. and Kruegel, C., 2005, July. Protecting users against phishing attacks with antiphish. In Computer Software and Applications Conference, 2005. COMPSAC 2005. 29th Annual International (Vol. 1, pp. 517-524). IEEE.
Lin, P., Allhoff, F. and Abney, K., 2014. Is warfare the right frame for the cyber debate?. In The ethics of information warfare (pp. 39-59). Springer, Cham.
Muscanell, N.L., Guadagno, R.E. and Murphy, S., 2014. Weapons of influence misused: A social influence analysis of why people fall prey to internet scams. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8(7), pp.388-396.
Perlroth, N., 2013. Hackers in China attacked The Times for last 4 months. NY Times, Jan, 30.
Poser, K. and Dransch, D., 2010. Volunteered geographic information for disaster management with application to rapid flood damage estimation. Geomatica, 64(1), pp.89-98.
Pratt, T.C., Holtfreter, K. and Reisig, M.D., 2010. Routine online activity and internet fraud targeting: Extending the generality of routine activity theory. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 47(3), pp.267-296.
Richet, J.L., 2016. Extortion on the internet: the rise of crypto-ransomware. Harvard.
Sazuka, N., Inoue, J.I. and Scalas, E., 2009. The distribution of first-passage times and durations in FOREX and future markets. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 388(14), pp.2839-2853.
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