In Simple way we can say that cyber crime is unlawful acts wherein the computer is either a tool or a target or both

Cyber crimes can involve criminal activities that are traditional in nature, such as theft, fraud, forgery, defamation and mischief, all of which are subject to the Indian Penal Code. The abuse of computers has also given birth to a gamut of new age crimes that are addressed by the Information Technology Act, 2000.

We can categorize Cyber crimes in two ways

The Computer as a Target :-using a computer to attack other computers.

e.g. Hacking, Virus/Worm attacks, DOS attack etc.

The computer as a weapon :-using a computer to commit real world crimes.

e.g. Cyber Terrorism, IPR violations, Credit card frauds, EFT frauds, Pornography etc.

Technical Aspects

Technological advancements have created new possibilities for criminal activity, in particular the criminal misuse of information technologies such as

a. Unauthorized access & Hacking:-

Access means gaining entry into, instructing or communicating with the logical, arithmetical, or memory function resources of a computer, computer system or computer network.

Unauthorized access would therefore mean any kind of access without the permission of either the rightful owner or the person in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network.

Every act committed towards breaking into a computer and/or network is hacking. Hackers write or use ready-made computer programs to attack the target computer. They possess the desire to destruct and they get the kick out of such destruction. Some hackers hack for personal monetary gains, such as to stealing the credit card information, transferring money from various bank accounts to their own account followed by withdrawal of money.

By hacking web server taking control on another persons website called as web hijacking

b. Trojan Attack:-

The program that act like something useful but do the things that are quiet damping. The programs of this kind are called as Trojans.

The name Trojan Horse is popular.

Trojans come in two parts, a Client part and a Server part. When the victim (unknowingly) runs the server on its machine, the attacker will then use the Client to connect to the Server and start using the trojan.

TCP/IP protocol is the usual protocol type used for communications, but some functions of the trojans use the UDP protocol as well.

c. Virus and Worm attack:-

A program that has capability to infect other programs and make copies of itself and spread into other programs is called virus.

Programs that multiply like viruses but spread from computer to computer are called as worms.

d. E-mail & IRC related crimes:-

1. Email spoofing

Email spoofing refers to email that appears to have been originated from one source when it was actually sent from another source.

2. Email Spamming

Email "spamming" refers to sending email to thousands and thousands of users - similar to a chain letter.

3 Sending malicious codes through email

E-mails are used to send viruses,Trojans etc through emails as an attachment or by sending a link of website which on visiting downloads malicious code.

4. Email bombing

E-mail "bombing" is characterized by abusers repeatedly sending an identical email message to a particular address.

5. Sending threatening emails

6. Defamatory emails

7. Email frauds

8. IRC related

Three main ways to attack IRC are: "verbalâ⦣8218;?Ŧ#8220; attacks, clone attacks, and flood attacks.

e. Denial of Service attacks:-

Flooding a computer resource with more requests than it can handle. This causes the resource to crash thereby denying access of service to authorized users.

Examples include

attempts to "flood" a network, thereby preventing legitimate network traffic

attempts to disrupt connections between two machines, thereby preventing access to a service

attempts to prevent a particular individual from accessing a service

attempts to disrupt service to a specific system or person.