History and Evolution of Cybercrime

In this era of digitalization, the computer system has helped to meet the day-to-day personal and business demands. Additionally, a majority of the users save all their confidential files and documents in the computer system.
Recently, Many cybercrime cases happened and in every case, we have found that criminals and attackers always target the valuable things in order to gain some form of profit. However, everyone can perform their actions from different places on the Internet due to this nature of the Internet, the criminals and attackers can attack their victims from the distance and many times their crimes are not caught and this is the reason why cybercrime is still evolving to survive.

Cybersecurity experts are also trying to find and close the loopholes to prevent crimes, but technology is also evolving, and criminals are constantly finding new strategies according to new trends. In this blog, we will understand the way cybercrime might evolve in the future and how it emerged in the history and evolution of cybercrime. So, let’s get started to know all about cybercrime in detail.

What is Cybercrime and How Big of a Problem Is It?

Cybercrime refers to all illegal activities accomplished using technology. It is generally done by criminals with the help of computers especially to initiate illegal access, transmit or change the data. Moreover, cybercriminals using the internet as a primary medium perform various illegal activities, which may include committing frauds, distribution of pornography, stealing identities, or violating privacy.

Types of Cybercrime:

There are several types of cybercrime, which include the following as per the recent trend:

• Identity theft
• Internet fraud
• ATM fraud
• File sharing and piracy
• Child pornography
• Hacking
• Computer viruses
• DoS attacks
• Steganography
• Email Hacking
• Sabotage

History and Evolution of Cybercrime

• In 1970, criminals break the telephone network by taking advantage of tone frequencies used on telephone networks to make free calls over a long distance. This attack was called phreaking, in which, the attackers reverse-engineered the telephone tone frequencies used by telephone companies.
• In 1980, Robert Morris made a worm that caused huge destruction to the organizations through the Internet. There after, this worm was named Morris worm. The U.S Government estimated that the damage was cost as high as $10,000,000.
• In 1989, criminals brought the first Ransomware attack, which was first targeted the healthcare industries. Ransomware is a type of software that locks the user’s files and data with a cryptographic key, and to unlock the data user have to pay some ransom in the exchange of unlocking cryptographic key.
• In the 90s, the web browser and email were in trend and new tools for criminals to exploit. Web browser and email allowed the criminals to expand their reach. As a result, the criminals started transmitting viruses over the Internet, with destructive results. The cyber criminals were able to reach people’s personal information from distance with the help of phishing attacks. This attack was able to trick millions of people simultaneously. Generally, this attack was used to make a lot of money.
• In 2000, Social media brought the rise of identity theft. Due to this many databases were created by companies that are existing with millions of users’ personal identities and these databases become a means for criminals to commit crimes. This attack was the new piggy bank for criminals across the world. This attack commits all types of fraud such as the creation of social media accounts, opening bank accounts and credit cards with other names.

Development of Cybercrime

Today we can see that history, as well as the evolution of cybercrime, has gotten worse as technology has rapidly grown faster and complex, it becomes sophisticated and harder to catch the criminals also. We saw constant attacks across all sectors of the economy. With the increasing number of loopholes, it becomes easy for the attackers to perform any illegal activity.

Some attacks we experience in our daily life:

In the history and development of cybercrime, we saw constant ransomware attacks.
Criminals are constantly looking for identity theft and financial fraud.
On a daily basis, we see news reports regarding the phishing attacks done by attackers.

Causes of Cybercrime

Cybercriminals are always looking for a way to make instant money. They target big organizations, rich people, banks, casinos, etc. Computes, laptops and other such digital devices are vulnerable and there are reasons for the vulnerability:

Ease to access: Hackers can steal and access the codes, images, etc. that can help to unlock the system easily and bypass firewalls. Doing this will enable attackers to gain unauthorized access.

Storing data in a small space: The system has the ability to store data in a very small space. This allows the cybercriminals to steal the data from any storage location and can use it for their profit.

Complex: The computer device is working on an operating system, which consists of millions of codes to execute. The human mind is not perfect, therefore sometimes they can do mistakes like improper malfunctions, unintended consequent while operating a system which causes a syntax error, run time error at any stage and criminals take advantage of these mistakes.

Loss of evidence: The data related to any crime can easily be destroyed by the attackers. So, there are chances of losing the evidence, which might be important in investigating cybercrime.

Here Come Some Preventive Measures of Cybercrime

As Cybercrime increases so to prevent the cybercrime, there are some preventive measures during the evolution of cybercrime:

• Use Strong Passwords
• Secure your devices with antivirus
• Protect your data by encryption
• Protect your identity online by enabling your privacy settings
• Keep your operating system up to date with the latest security patches

 

Concluding Lines

Most people don’t know what is cybercrime and how big of a problem is it? Through this blog, we have discussed what is cybercrime and also analyzed how criminals are using technology for illegal activities such as hacking, phishing, identity theft, etc. for their profit and how technology is growing so rapidly. So it is important to secure and follow some preventive measures for security purposes.