Cybercrime: Costs, Detection, and Prevention Challenges

1. Class 25 • Computer crime • Assign • Term paper—due 11/20 Mary Jean Harrold

2. Computer Crime Mary Jean Harrold

3. Why Worry About Computer Crime? • Crimes committed using computer or Internet can be more costly (monetarily) than other crimes • e.g., a bank robber may get $2,500 to $5,000 on average; average loss from computer fraud is $100,000) • estimates are that computer crime costs victims in the USA at least $5×108/year, and true value of such crime might be substantially higher • Computer crimes are larger and affect more people (a hacker breaking into an e-commerce database can steal hundreds or thousands of credit card numbers) • Computer crimes are harder to detect and trace (e.g., the anonymity of the Web) • Computing provides new challenges for prevention, detection, and prosecution; challenges that professionals will be asked to meet. Mary Jean Harrold

4. Why Worry About Computer Crime? What are some examples of computer crime of which you are aware? Mary Jean Harrold

5. Hacking Discussion • Use of the word “hacker” • What did the word “hacker” mean in the early days of computing (1960-70)? • How did the use of “hacker” change after 1970? • Justification of “hacking” • How do hackers justify their activities? • What are counterarguments to their justifications? • What are some techniques used to catch hackers? • Give examples (real and recent) of a computer crime committed by insiders (employees) in a company? • What are some problems with electronic voting? Mary Jean Harrold

6. Hacking Discussion (cont’d) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement by Ken Thompson (for what is he known?) The act of breaking into a computer system has to have the same social stigma as breaking into a neighbor’s house. It should not matter that the neighbor’s door is unlocked. Write a paragraph or two. Give reasons. Mary Jean Harrold

7. Hacking Discussion (cont’d) Consider the following question: Do hackers do public service by finding and publicizing computer security weaknesses? Select a side and write a few because clauses. Mary Jean Harrold

8. On-line Voting • Suppose you are on a consulting team to design a voting system for your state in which people will vote by logging on to a Web site. • What are some important design considerations? • What are some pros and cons for such a system? • Overall, is it a good idea? Mary Jean Harrold

9. Computer Viruses • More than 85,000 virus-type threats exist today. • Complicated because there are many virus hoaxes, which may be in the form of dire email warnings about disk-eating (or computer destroying!) attachments that may land in your inbox. • See www.sophos.com/virusinfo/ or www.ciac.org/ciac/ciac_virus_info.html • Internet hoaxes—see http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ Mary Jean Harrold

10. Types of Viruses • Malicious worms (e.g., the Love Bug) that propagate using email and destroy the contents of computers. • Denial-of-service attacks; more recently there are distributed DNS attacks. • “Back-door” worms that exploit vulnerabilities to enter surreptitiously and copy private information. Mary Jean Harrold

11. Class discussion for Thursday • 3-minute presentations by each group • Handout describes situation • Favor of criminal action; defense against criminal action • Everyone not on that issue votes for or against the person • Student in a course...not responsible • Student who activated…responsible • President of college…not responsible • President of college’s ISP… • Director of hospital… • Discuss Mary Jean Harrold