What is Cyber Crime? How to protect yourself from Cybercrime

What is Cybercrime?

     Cyber Crime is a crime in which a hacker or attacker breaches your security without your permission or authorization. Cybercrime is often committed online over the internet that involves network devices or computers. 
     Cybercrime is usually committed to generating profit for cybercriminals. It is not just about stealing your financial information for money but also getting your important data or information and use the information for terrorist activities, harassment, child sex, and many more. Crimes like fraud, money laundering, illegal guns, Fake certificates, viruses, and harassment are easier to carry out than ever before.
     Cybercriminals can employ different tools and tactics especially malware activities by setting up different fake websites and sending different tricky messages to trick you to enter your sensitive information like username and password.

                                 CyberCrime Statistics 

1. There is a cyberattack or hacker attacker every 39 seconds ago.

       It means that about 2,215 attacks per day. Our non-secure and easy usernames and passwords make this easier for a hacker to steal data. From this, you come to know the internet is as helpful as dangerous.

 2. The US FBI reported a 300% increase in Cyberattacks or hacker attacks, since COVID-19.
       After COVID-19, most of the office work is done at home because of this pandemic disease. So, it can increase the chances of cyberattacks as the systems are more vulnerable to hackers. 
 3. In 2021, around $6 trillion is required to be spent universally on cybersecurity

        Organizations have to reprioritize their budget to meet the new threat of our society to make themselves secure.

 4. Most organizations take half a year to recognize a piece of information penetrate, even significant ones.
      Some organizations can’t know that their customer information like name, credit card number, and others are compromised. And in some cases when they come to know that there sensitive data of the customer is lost, they can’t tell them openly because there is a chance of losses of shares, trust, and its hurt badly the reputation of the organization.

5. The worldwide normal expense of an information penetrate is $3.9 million

       Most of the organizations have not properly planned what to do before the attack, during the attack, or after the attack and hence they bear a heavy cost of that.


                    Cybercrime Examples 

  The biggest example of cybercrime in Pakistan is the loss of sensitive data of customers in banks. This case happened when over 8,000 account data has stolen from almost all Pakistani banks. And it is not reported by any bank until Islamic bank gave a statement that about 2.6 million rupees were stolen from an international payment card.
    Another incident of cybercrime takes place in the form of rape. It’s Zainab’s murder case. The man who attempts this rape was operated on from the dark web and he received all the instructions from there, and he already has done 8 rape before this. Now, you come to know how dangerous the internet is and how cybercrime committed.
    A few years back, a game released named blue whale. And those people who played this game attempted suicide. Now, what is this? When you install this game or any other game we allow access to our photos, media, etc. And this game records your all data-sensitive data and blackmailed you to complete the mission. And what is the mission? It is to kill someone, heist, etc. And that’s why people attempt suicide. And this is the biggest example of cybercrime as well.

              How to protect yourself from CyberCrime

         Manage Social Media

what is cybercrime       In the present era, almost everyone uses social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Pinterest, etc and there we provided our all information like name, CNIC, birthday date, phone number, etc. 

       And then it became very easy for a hacker to steal our information and use it for unfair means and make you involve in cybercrime. Don’t give your real name or private information on these platforms and if it is necessary then make sure your private information.

 We people thought that what can they do with our information?  as we don’t have any bank balance or money etc. 
          They can use your name and information for illegal works on the dark web and for hacking a big organization’s server by making them slow in bombarding a lot of data that was sent from your name and email address. Hence as a result Police caught you for this illegal act.

          Data Management and Backups

       It is very important to keep your data backups. You have to keep your photos and important files backed up. 

       Your backup files are always in two to three different places like you can back up your files in the removable disk( USB or flash drive).
       You can also use cloud storage like google drive, Mega, Dropbox, etc to back up your files. Because of this after an attack, you can at least got your data back.

          Use Secure Websites

       This is another very important factor that saves you from cybercrime. For example, you visited many websites a day. But you can’t notice that the site you are visiting is secure or not. The sites which have a lock on the left side of their URL mean that these are secure and use HTTPS protocol.  All other sites are unsecured and can get your sensitive data like name, your password of ATM, etc.

          Windows Updates 

   Don’t stop windows update as they can send you the update which is necessary for your system. And always turn on firewall and window defenders as these can block any suspicious website that can harm your computer. And give you a notification when any cyberactivity happens. Don’t use any free antivirus because after some time it will corrupt your system.

         Administrator Accounts and User Account Control

  You can always have two accounts on your system one is an administrator account and the second one is a user account. 
   An administrator account, it has all the rights and privileges you can keep changes in your system like installing software, make changes in major configuration, perform network-related tasks, etc.         
      If your friend or colleague asks you for the usage of your PC for some time you must give your laptop with a user account. So, they have limited access and they cannot interrupt the sensitive data of your PC.
       Path:
After right-clicking on This PC click on =>
                   managelocal users and groupsusers
Then right-click and select new user.

         Bit-Locker

what is cybercrime    Bit-locker is a built-in function of window 10. Those people who use Windows 10 must enable a bit-locker on their sensitive data drive. 

    Bit-locker can encrypt your data which cannot be readable. You have to store his key on a different drive. And don’t ever use BitLocker on your C drive or where the window is stored. 

          Port Blockage

    Port blockage is very useful when you are working in an organization with your competitors. It is a fair chance that they can copy your important data using a USB or any other flash drive. So USB blockage is very useful. 
       For USB blockage use this path.

REGEDIT – HKEY LOCAL MACHINE – SYSTEM – CurrentControlSet – Services – USBSTOR
           And change the value of start to 4.

         Strong Password

    Wherever you are using a password on the internet or anywhere else make it complex by using an alphabetical letter, characters, and numbers and don’t repeat your same password on different sites, and keep changing your password after a month or two. 
     You can use at least 10 letters in your password. And don’t share your password with anyone else like a friend, colleagues, etc.  
     A strong password which fulfills all the requirement like uppercase, lowercase letter, numeric and special character(@, #) will hard to crack. Always choose a password that is not usually used like don’t use your name or number in your password.

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