Where does cybercrime came from?
WHERE DOES CYBERCRIME CAME FROME?
Although the internet is only about 30 years old, experts consider an 1834 hack the first cybercrime in history. Two thieves were able to infiltrate the French Telegraph System and gain access to financial markets, committing data theft.
Other early cybercrimes, beginning in the late 1800s and first half of the 20th century, saw hackers focus on the telephone systems. Just two years after phones were invented, teenage boys broke into Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone company and caused mischief by misdirecting calls. Phone hacking, or phreaking, later became popular in the 1960s to 1980s.
The year 1940 saw the first ethical hacker: French computer expert Rene Carmille hacked into the Nazi data registry to thwart their attempts to register and track Jews.
In the 1980s, the advent of email brought with it phishing scams (remember the Nigerian prince?) and malware delivered through attachments. By the 1990s, web browsers had become commonplace, along with computer viruses. The widespread adoption of social media in the 2000s only increased cybercrime, and especially data theft, due to the nature of these platforms. During the past ten years, malware infections and data theft have increased dramatically, and show no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
With the proliferation of the Internet of Things, cybercriminals have many creative new ways to attack. As more and more everyday objects — refrigerators, washing machines, heating systems, light bulbs, and more — come online, they open new vulnerabilities and opportunities to cybercrooks. Hackers have already figured out how to infiltrate a casino via its smart fish tank and deploy ransomware through a coffee maker; the full scope of cybercrime in the age of IoT is not quite known yet, but it’s something we should certainly be on guard for.
As an everyday user of computers and mobile devices, how are you most likely to encounter cybercrime? It can reach you through a variety of ways, including unsafe websites, social media, holes created by exploited security vulnerabilities, weak passwords on accounts and/or smart devices, and, especially, email.
Though social media may be one of the most popular ways to use the internet these days, email is still the most prevalent delivery method for cybercrime. Not only that, email fraud is the second-costliest cybercrime, according to the FBI. Email fraud encompasses phishing attempts, malware in the form of sketchy attachments or links, as well as some forms of digital extortion, ransomware, and exploit kits.
The dark web
The deep web refers to all parts of the internet (sites, e-shops, forums, etc.) that are not accessible by a regular search engine like Google or Bing. A subset of the deep web is the dark web, or darknet, which requires a special browser, such as Tor, to access it. Although the dark web is not itself illegal, the anonymity it affords makes it a hotbed for criminal activity.
On the dark web, cybercriminals can exchange the most dangerous and odious commodities our society has to offer: malware, drugs, weapons, child pornography, and even contract killing. The dark web is also where information, like stolen passwords or credit card numbers, gets bought and sold. That’s why if you’re a victim of a data breach, it can sometimes take a few days (or even longer) until someone purchases the stolen data and tries to access your account.
Who’s most at risk?
As mentioned, cybercriminals can target individuals, businesses, and governments. And at the risk of sounding alarmist, none of those groups are any more or less safe from threats than the others. Cyber fraudsters are pretty indiscriminate when it comes to choosing their victims. Luckily, we have some proven strategies for preventing cybercrime, which we’ll share with you a bit later in this article. (Spoiler alert: the best line of defense is making sure you’re using good antivirus software.)
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