Cyber attacks

Context:

• Checkpoint’s report titled ‘Cyber Attack Trends: 2021 Mid-Year Report’ highlights dominance of ransomware attacks which has increased 93% in the first half of the year compared to the same period a year ago.
• The Asia-Pacific region was among the most affected with 1,338 weekly attacks per organisation in the first half of 2021.

Causes for the large number of cyberattacks?

• Rapid digitalisation is one of the major reasons for high exposure and cybersecurity attacks.
• Banking, manufacturing, retail, and healthcare ecosystems heavily rely on partners, suppliers, and third-party vendors who access enterprise networks to conduct several of their activities. Hence any vulnerability in their cybersecurity infrastructure could be a security risk for enterprises.
• Work from home mandate that various organisations follow due the pandemic.
• Many businesses have relied heavily on employees using personal devices to keep operations running, with work from home moving from an option to a rule almost overnight.

What is cybercrime?

• Cybercrime is criminal activity that either targets or uses a computer, a computer network or a networked device.
• Most, cybercrime is committed by cybercriminals or hackers who want to make money. Cybercrime is carried out by individuals or organizations.

Types of cybercrime

• Email and internet fraud.
• Identity fraud (where personal information is stolen and used).
• Theft of financial or card payment data.
• Theft and sale of corporate data.
• Cyberextortion (demanding money to prevent a threatened attack).
• Ransomware attacks (a type of cyberextortion).
• Cryptojacking (where hackers mine cryptocurrency using resources they do not own).
• Cyberespionage (where hackers access government or company data).
• Cybercrime that stops users using a machine or network, or prevents a business providing a software service to its customers, is called a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack.

How to protect oneself against cybercrime?

• Keeping your software and operating system up to date ensures that you benefit from the latest security patches to protect your computer.
• Using anti-virus or a comprehensive internet security solution is a smart way to protect system from attacks.
• Use strong passwords that people will not guess and do not record them anywhere.
• Never open attachments in spam emails to avoid malware attacks and other forms of cybercrime via email attachments in spam emails.
• Never give out personal data over the phone or via email unless you are completely sure the line or email is secure. Make certain that you are speaking to the person you think you are.
• Be mindful of which website URLs you visit

Challenges in combating cyber crimes

• Anonymity that information and communication technology affords to users. It enables individuals to engage in activities without revealing themselves and/or their actions to others.
• Lack of Privacy and Data Protection laws in India, i.e. no legal framework for the victim to get justice.
• Lack of harmonized international standardization and mutual legal assistance framework on cybercrime matters between countries.
• Cybercrime investigators also face technical challenges, as ICT is an ever advancing field.
• Lack of highly trained and skilled cybercrime investigator in public investigating firms.

Measures taken so far:

• The Central Government supplements the initiatives of the State Governments through advisories and financial assistance under various schemes for their capacity building.
• Ministry of Home Affairs has provided financial assistance to all the States & UTs under Cyber Crime Prevention against Women & Children (CCPWC) scheme to support their efforts for setting up of cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories, training, and hiring of junior cyber consultants.
• Cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories have been commissioned in 18 States.
• The Central Government has taken steps for spreading awareness about cyber crimes, issuance of alerts/ advisories, capacity building/ training of law enforcement personnel/ prosecutors/ judicial officers, improving cyber forensic facilities etc.
• The Government has established Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) to provide a framework and eco-system for LEAs to deal with the cyber crimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.
• The Government has launched the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal (www.cybercrime.gov.in), to enable public to report incidents pertaining to all types of cyber crimes, with a special focus on cyber crimes against women and children.
• A toll-free number 155260 has been operationalised to get assistance in lodging online cyber complaints.
• Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting and Management System module has been launched for immediate reporting of financial frauds and to stop siphoning off fund by the fraudsters.

International best practices:

• United States of America constantly assures transparency, productivity and development with regards to data security. It executed cyber security strategies, outlayed cyber security principles, to address
• The federal government of Canada spend up to $1 billion on cybersecurity.
• Chinese Cybersecurity Law (CCL) provides an unified legal framework for cyberspace protection and development.

Way forward:

• Adoption of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, which is an international treaty to address cybercrime by increasing cooperation among nations. Presently, India is not a signatory to this convention.
• Awareness and digital literacy among users is essential to tackle cybercrimes.
• New Technologies likes Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine learning can be employed for accurately identifying attacks.

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/cyberattacks-surge-in-the-first-half-of-2021-ransomware-attacks-dominate-report-finds/article35816262.ece?homepage=true