Free Essay with the Case Studies about Hackers and Cybercrime

Due to the increased use of information technology, the internet, databases as well as social media, there are many cases of cyber-crimes. Cybercrimes continue to come in various forms with every year that passes by. It entails unauthorized access to data as well as data alterations, theft of funds or intellectual property. Cyber criminals have in the recent times changed the manner in which they organize themselves and their target groups. The criminals target the online-transactional-based activities. Hacktivism-based attacks are on the rise as well (Ogunbadewa, n.d.). In the past years, hackers have been described as criminals as well as heroes in equal measure.

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Case study: Digital Bank Robbery-3.7 Million Israeli Bank Customer Case.

In this case scenario, a hacker who operates one of the biggest botnet malware networks in Israel gained access to the database of three Israeli banks. The hacker did so to blackmail the three banks namely Israel Discount Bank, Bank Yahav and the First International Bank of Israel. In this case, the hacker used intimidation measures to warn the banks and blackmail the managers to remit a lot of funds to escape the looming attack. Findings show that the banks received threatening emails that unless they sent the named amount to Bitcoins in few weeks time, they would render the banks vulnerable by issuing out their clients database to a hostile environment.

In this case scenario, these banks databases were either not breached, but just a clear case of intimidation and outright blackmail was employed. Nevertheless, the hackers would have been in a position to do so, and this would compromise the security of the banks. Additionally, in this scenario, the banks were in bad shape as the hacker claimed to be in possession of a massive financial Trojan botnet network that had already compromised several systems across the nation as well as collecting stolen information.

In my opinion, hackers are not heroes; they are criminals who gain unwarranted access. In the event of gaining unauthorized access, they end up developing malice and in most cases employ intimidations and blackmail as posited in the case above.

The Anti-Cyber Crime Law in Saudi Arabia

This law was formulated to address the rise in electronic crimes. The anti-cyber-crime law in Saudi Arabia comprises the following crimes:

1. Spying on, interception or reception of data transmitted through an information network or a computer without legitimate authorization.

2. Unlawful access to computers with the intention to threaten or blackmail any person to compel him to take or refrain from taking an action be it lawful or unlawful.

3. Unlawful access to a website, or hacking a website with the intention to change its design, destroys or modifies it, or occupy its URL.

4. Invasion of privacy through the misuse of camera-equipped mobile phones and the like.

5. Defamation and infliction of damage upon others through the use of various information technology devices (Alhomod & Shafi, 2012).

Other legislative instruments are inclusive of but not limited to

Draft Law of E-commerce System

The Basic Law of Governance which generally protects the privacy of individuals.

The principle laws issued by Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency

References

Alhomod, S., & Shafi, M. (2012). Privacy Policy in E Government Websites: A Case Study of Saudi Arabia. CIS, 5(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/cis.v5n2p88

Ogunbadewa, A. The Bitcoin Virtual Currency: A Safe Haven for Money Launderers?. SSRN Electronic Journal. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2402632