Cyber crime on the rise in port City

VISAKHAPATNAM: With ever increasing population of netizens in the city, the number of cyber crimes is also rising sharply, if the latest cases are anything to go by.

But, Visakhapatnam is yet to get exclusive cyber crime police station.

Visakhapatnam ranks second after Hyderabad in number of cyber crime cases under the IT Act with 100 cases reported in last 11 months.

The home department opened cyber crime cells in the city in August 2010. With a staff strength of only seven, the cells are woefully short of personnel to deal with rising number of cyber crimes.

Speaking to Express, Inspector of Cyber Crime Cell C Murali Naidu said cyber crime is quite different from conventional crimes.

“We deal with educated professionals, probably people who are experts in computers and software. They are intelligent, articulate and belong to good families.

Most importantly, they are well-versed with computer technology. So, to nab them we need to have technical and analytical skills of professionals,” said the Inspector.

Since its inception, the cyber crime cell in the city is mandated to tackle hi-tech crime cases. Out of around 100 complaints, they have cracked around 70 cases.

Naidu said cyber crime could lead to other thefts such as ATM fraud, online bank f raud, s ending malicious messages through mobile or Internet, blackmail or even morphing. People are ignorant about cyber crime and therefore, need to be educated, he added.

Akin to cyber crimes police stations launched in Hyderabad in August, 2010 and Cyberabad in November 2010, Visakhapatnam Police Commissionerate needs a cyber crime police station to tackle hi-tech crimes in the city.

A proposal has been sent to government in this regard, sources said.

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Virgin Media warns users of trojan virus

SOCA detected the virus created to steal bank details

The SpyEye trojan virus, which is designed to steal online bank accounts information, has infected over 1,500 PCs of Internet service provider Virgin Media.

The malicious virus infections were detected by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), which alerted Virgin Media. SOCA is investigating the matter.

Virgin Media has sent letters to its broadband customers which have instructions on how to remove the virus, which usually affects Microsoft Windows systems, and avoid escalation of security threats.

The SpyEye trojan virus was first detected in 2009.

SOCA cyber chief Lee Miles said he welcomed "steps taken within industry to utilise the information and resources provided by law enforcement and raise awareness of online safety".

A Virgin Media spokesman said the response of its customers about the infection had been "generally positive".

The company's executive director of broadband Jon James said, "Cybercrime is on the rise and the increasing sophistication of malware infections mean that all Internet users could be at risk with devastating effects."

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Win 7 Security 2012 – The New Contagious Cyber Virus

What is most shocking about cyber crime is that hackers keep reinventing methods of malicious attacks. To support this statement we can have a look at one of the latest rogueware applications: Win 7 Security 2012. This is another program which is created to cleverly ensnare PC users.

This software claims to be an antivirus application but in fact has nothing in common with reliable anti-malware software. All the warnings and scan reports produced by Win 7 Security 2012 are displayed only to mislead victims into thinking there is some severe threat of losing their information.

In fact none of these alerts are true and they are shown only to delude you.

Win 7 Security 2012 works in such a way that it targets vulnerabilities in your PC system and uses them to crate an illusion of serious Trojan infection. It also displays a list of viruses that has to be removed but later it turns out that the only way to do that is to purchase the malware application. As it has been already figured out, this program is only a scam.

Hackers are working continuously on creating new computer infections and as a result of this an upswing in Web threats has been detected. To protect your personal information you have to be aware that rogue applications do not provide any security solution and can only harm your PC. For that reason you have not to trust such fake anti-malware applications and install only trustworthy antivirus programs.

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