Why in news:

• The state government has recently launched a campaign for general public, especially students, to curb cybercrime.
• First Wednesday of every month will be celebrated as Cyber Awareness Day in the state and an annual calendar will be prepared.

Key Points:

• Due to the increased use of online platforms during the Covid-induced lockdown, cybercrimes have also increased.
• With the growing trend of online education among students, it was necessary to educate them about cybercrime so that they do not fall prey to criminals.
• Cyber Awareness Day will be celebrated in the state on the first Wednesday of every month from 11 am to 12 noon.
• It will be celebrated in collaboration with the district administration, education, police, health, information and technology departments along with common service centres, ASHA workers, Panchayati Raj institutions and municipalities.
• The concerned departments have been directed to prepare their action plans in this regard.

Cyber Security:

• Cyber Security is the act of protecting cyber space including critical information infrastructure from attack, damage, misuse and economic espionage.
• Cyber Space here refers to a global domain within the information environment consisting of the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers.
   
• Critical Information Infrastructure: According to Section 70(1) of the Information Technology Act, CII is defined as a “computer resource, the incapacitation or destruction of which, shall have debilitating impact on national security, economy, public health or safety”.
• Cyber Attack: It is a malicious and deliberate attempt by an individual or organization to breach the information system of another individual or organization.
• Recent increase in use of smartphones by majority of people and availability of cheap internet has led to a spurt in cases of cyber attacks.The motives behind such attacks, therefore, are manifold.
• Some of the chief motives behind such Cyber Attacks are:
  • To seek commercial gain by hacking banks and financial institutions.
  • To attack critical assets of a nation.
  • To penetrate into both corporate and military data servers to obtain plans and intelligence.
  • To hack sites to virally communicate a message for some specific campaign related to politics and society.

Types of Cyber Attacks:

• Cyber attacks can be categorized into various groups on the basis of motive of the attacker, nature of attack, individuals/groups targeted, level of sophistication and the like.
• Some major types of Cyber Attacks are:
  • Malware: Malware, short for malicious software refers to any kind of software that is designed to cause damage to a single computer, server, or computer network. Ransomware, Spy ware, Worms, viruses, and Trojans are all varieties of malware.
  • Phishing: It is the method of trying to gather personal information using deceptive e-mails and websites.
  • Denial of Service attacks: A Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack is an attack meant to shut down a machine or network, making it inaccessible to its intended users. DoS attacks accomplish this by flooding the target with traffic, or sending it information that triggers a crash.
  • Man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, also known as eavesdropping attacks, occur when attackers insert themselves into a two-party transaction. Once the attackers interrupt the traffic, they can filter and steal data.
  • SQL Injection: SQL stands for Structured Query Language, a programming language used to communicate with databases.
  • Many of the servers that store critical data for websites and services use SQL to manage the data in their databases.
  • A SQL injection attack specifically targets such kind of servers, using malicious code to get the server to divulge information it normally wouldn’t.
  • Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): Similar to an SQL injection attack, this attack also involves injecting malicious code into a website, but in this case the website itself is not being attacked.
  • Instead, the malicious code the attacker has injected, only runs in the user's browser when they visit the attacked website, and therefore, the target of such attack is the visitor, not the website.
  • Social engineering: It is an attack that relies on human interaction to trick users into breaking security procedures in order to gain sensitive information that is typically protected.

Recent Cases:

WannaCry:

• It was a ransomware attack that spread rapidly in May, 2017.
• The ransomware locked users’ devices and prevented them from accessing data and software until a certain ransom was paid to the criminals. Top five cities in India (Kolkata, Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Pune and Mumbai) got impacted due to it.

Mirai Botnet:

• Mirai is malware that infects smart devices that run on ARC processors, turning them into a network of remotely controlled bots or zombies.
• This network of bots, called a botnet, is often used to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
• In September 2016, Mirai malware launched a DDoS attack on the website of a well-known security expert

Need for Cyber Security:

• For Individuals: Photos, videos and other personal information shared by an individual on social networking sites can be inappropriately used by others, leading to serious and even life-threatening incidents.
• For Business Organizations: Companies have a lot of data and information on their systems.
• A cyber attack may lead to loss of competitive information (such as patents or original work), loss of employees/customers private data resulting into complete loss of public trust in the integrity of the organization.
• For Government: A local, state or central government maintains huge amount of confidential data related to country (geographical, military strategic assets etc.) and citizens.
• Unauthorized access to the data can lead to serious threats to a country and/or its citizens.

International Mechanisms and Organisations:

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

• It is a specialized agency within the United Nations which plays a leading role in the standardization and development of telecommunications and cyber security issues.

Budapest Convention on Cybercrime:

• It is an international treaty that seeks to address Internet and computer crime (cybercrime) by harmonizing national laws, improving investigative techniques, and increasing cooperation among nations.
• It came into force on 1 July 2004.
• India is not a signatory to this convention.
   

Internet Governance Forum (IGF):

• It brings together all stakeholders i.e. government, private sector and civil society on the Internet governance debate.
• It was first convened in October–November 2006.
   

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN):

• It is a non-profit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the network's stable and secure operation. It has its headquarters in Los Angeles, U.S.A.
  
  
   

Information Technology Act, 2000

• The act regulates use of computers, computer systems, computer networks and also data and information in electronic format.
• The act lists down among other things, following as offences:
  • Tampering with computer source documents.
  • Hacking with computer system
  • Act of cyber terrorism i.e. accessing a protected system with the intention of threatening the unity, integrity, sovereignty or security of country.
  • Cheating using computer resource etc.