ABSTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background of the Study

With the development of Internet and World Wide Web, our world has become a global village allowing us to interact, educate, buy and sell goods and services at the mere click of the mouse. But along with this we have seen an increase in illegal activities, like phishing, hacking, etc., so cyber-crime is now recognized as a major international problem, and has become a serious issue for all organization dealing with online e-commerce (Purkait, 2013). Over the last decade several internet attacks have grown considerably on the World Wide Web.

The Internet is one of the fastest-growing areas of technical infrastructure development. Today, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are omnipresent and the trend towards digitization is growing. The demand for Internet and computer connectivity has led to the integration of computer technology into products that have usually functioned without it, such as cars and buildings. Electricity supply, transportation infrastructure, military services and logistics – virtually all modern services depend on the use of ICTs (Marco, 2012).

Cybersecurity plays an important role in the ongoing development of information technology, as well as Internet services. Enhancing cybersecurity and protecting critical information infrastructures are essential to each nation’s security and economic well-being. Making the Internet safer (and protecting Internet users) has become integral to the development of new services as well as government policy. Deterring cybercrime is an integral component of a national cybersecurity and critical information infrastructure protection strategy. In particular, this includes the adoption of appropriate legislation against the misuse of ICTs for criminal or other purposes and activities intended to affect the integrity of national critical infrastructures. At all levels, this is a shared responsibility requiring coordinated action related to prevention, preparation, response and recovery from incidents on the part of government authorities, the private sector and citizens. At the regional and international level, this entails cooperation and coordination with relevant partners. Cybersecurity strategies (for example, the development of technical protection systems or the education of users to prevent them from becoming victims of cybercrime) can help to reduce the risk of cybercrime. The development and support of cybersecurity strategies are a vital element in the fight against cybercrime (Marco, 2012).

Cybercrime emerged at first as a threat to individuals and organizations; now it also impacts entire countries. Experts in the criminology field have reported that the existence of organized cyber criminals in the online world is growing rapidly (Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, 2006). According to the Price water-house Coopers (2016), Global Economic Crime Survey, cybercrime has jumped from 4th to 2nd place amongst most reported types of economic crime. From the globally surveyed organizations, 22% experienced losses between $100,000 and $1 million, and approximately 5% suffered losses of over $5 million, of these 1% reported losses in excess of $100 million. Focusing more specifically on UK reports, over half of organizations in the UK experienced economic crime in the past two years, of those around 44% had been victims of cybercrime (up from 24% in 2014). These figures clearly show that there is an increase in cybercrime incidents, which is correlated with a lack of proper technological response and support from law enforcement (Hunton, 2011).

The area of cybercrime intelligence has attracted the attention of the research community with the aim of aiding law enforcement better to detect, analyze, and understand the threat landscape posed by online cyber criminals. Cyber criminals use the internet as their crime scene since it provides them with ease of communication, wider recruitment possibilities, and opportunities to form partnership with other national and international criminal groups (Jica, 2013). This results in them leaving several “crumbs” that collectively produce a digital footprint for each cyber-criminal. Previous research has studied these footprints in order to gain better understanding of the characteristics of these cyber-criminal groups (Procter et al, 2013).

1.2     Statement of the Problem

With the wide spread of the Internet and the increasing popularity of several web services that provides prompt data for users, several criminal and radical groups have adopted it as a medium of operation. This makes it very necessary to develop a mechanism that will aid in reporting and apprehending cyber criminals in order to solve the challenges encountered in the cyberspace with special focus on web applications. Below are some challenges encountered in the current system.

1. Criminal activities against the system is never monitored nor reported. Hence, the cyber criminal has more chances to keep trying until a success is achieved.
2. There is currently no mechanism put in place to monitor inputs of users during login. Hence, several attacking methods can be done through the input elements giving the attacker a possible chance for success.
3. There is currently no means of getting possible malicious code samples by attackers to analyze in order to keep improving the current system’s security.

The system proposed in this research is intended to bring relive by providing solutions to the problem of the current system as stated above.

1.3     Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this research work is to design and develop a crime detective system that will be able to monitor inputs of users and send samples of attempted attacks to the system administrator without the knowledge of the attacker using the Nigerian Army College of Environmental Science and Technology (NACEST) student portal as a case study.

The objectives are as outlined below:

1. To improve the possibility of a cybercriminal being tracked and apprehended due to sufficient reports.
2. Developing a safer platform for students during registration in the portal.
3. To show the need for a cybercrime detective system that checks for multiple attacks in a system.
4. To give cyber security agencies the opportunity of getting the attacking code of an attacker. This will aid for proper analyses of the code in order to get a more preferable deterrence method.
5. To make cybercrime detection in websites easier and efficient.

1.4     Significance of the Study

This research will be of great significance not only to NACEST, but also to the entire country since it has to do with solving one of the world’s most serious problem today. Below are the positive impacts that the proposed system will bring if implemented:

1. It will aid in fetching system information from the attacker’s computer system thereby giving law enforcement agencies more reports in order to trace cybercriminals.
2. The chances of a cybercriminal being caught is increased thereby reducing the rate at which crimes are committed on the internet.
3. Samples of attackers malicious codes are retrieved and sent to the administrator for proper analysis and planning for deterrent purposes.

 1.5    Scope of the Study

The scope of this study covers the detection of cybercrime for the Nigerian Army College of Environmental Science and Technology (NACEST) student portal. The system will only be able to analyze users input in order to determine how safe it is before sending it into the database. The system is specifically focused on checking the signatures of inputs entered into the portal by any user, and sending the system information, username of the user (if exist) and suspected code to the system’s administrator if and only if the entered strings are suspected to be a malicious by the system.

1.6     Definition of Terms

• Attacker: A person or animal that attacks someone or something.
• Crime: An action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law.
• Cyber Attacker: A person or process that attempts to access data, functions or other restricted areas of a cyber system without authorization, potentially with malicious intent.
• Cyber: relating to or characteristic of the culture of computers, information technology, and virtual reality.
• Cybercrime: Criminal activities carried out by means of computers or the Internet.
• Malicious: characterized by malice; intending or intended to do harm.
• Portal: A website or web page providing access or links to other sites.
• System Administrator: A person who manages the operation of a computer system or particular electronic communication service.