Essay Sample on Cybercrime: The Melissa Virus & Social Engineering

Introduction

Cybercrime is a criminal activity that involves a computer and a network, and it began when hackers started accessing computer networks illegally. Cybercrime, most of the time, comes in the form of viruses and malicious software that are placed online by criminals, most of whom use social engineering to reach unknowing users of the internet and websites. Melissa virus is one of the major cybercrimes that have been experienced in the United States as it spread all over the United States in hours. It had many negative effects on the computer systems of many individuals and individuals. Still, it served as a wake-up call for many organizations as they got to understand where they had put fewer strategies to deal with such viruses and how they could change the policy.

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The first cybercrime instances were reported a long time before the internet was invented. The type of cybercrime by then was data theft, where the computer networks were illegally accessed, and data that was stored in government systems, as well as corporate information, made public by hackers. However, cybercrime evolved to become email proliferation in the late 1980s, and through such hacks, it allowed for a lot of scams and malware that hackers sent to people's inboxes (Ahmad, 2010).

The frauds were used to access the personal computer networks, and they gained access to personal information that they used to access different bank accounts and steal money from unknowing users. In the 1990s, web browsers were developed, and with this came an advancement of the hacking styles that were experienced in the countries that used computers and had access to the internet (Schjolberg, 2014). Hacking and spread of viruses at this time was made possible by the many advancements of web browsers that were developed then. Most of them were prone to infections, and these viruses were delivered through certain websites that were used to spread them. Many of the viruses made the computers slow down and have many pop-ups, most of which advertised to people the screen on the laptop or redirected the users to different sites, most of which were unethical.

In the 2000s, social media was developed, and that intensified cybercrime as many people worldwide started placing personal information in different databases and social media sites (Schjolberg, 2014). The posting of personal information in social media sites created a flood of information in the internet, and cases of ID theft were on the rise.

The information that was stolen in the social media sites was used to set credit cards that they used to take loans using other people's personal information leaving them with loans they knew nothing about. They also used the information for other frauds of finances. Cybercrime has grown over the years to become a global industry of crime that leads to losses totaling to almost half a trillion dollars every year. The criminals have even set operating sites and organizations which they use to target any company or individual who has access to the website and the internet.

Melissa virus is one of the significant cybercrimes that have been reported all over the world. This virus is distributed to unknowing users through email attachments, and when the user opens the accessories, they disable several safeguards of word 1997 and 2000 (Ubarhande, 2011). The virus also affects the Microsoft outlook program of emailing, where it sends the virus to fifty people in the users' email addresses.

The virus does not destroy any files in the computer systems of the company or individual. Still, it has been reported on many cases to disable corporate servers and spread more of the virus through email distribution. One major example where Melissa virus affected a major corporation was in the year 1999 when it caused the Microsoft Corporation, Intel corporation as well as several companies to shut down their email systems and cut down on the ability to receive emails for a while (Ubarhande, 2011).

The Melissa virus was created in 1999 by David Smith based on Microsoft word (Dobrovolsky, Rogalyova, Gerasina, & Ivanchenko, 2014). He named the virus Melissa based on a Florida exotic dancer. The virus was designed in such a way that it was easily spread through various email messages by tempting the receiver of the email to open the document sent and later resending itself to the first fifty email addresses in the contacts list. The document is most of the time covered with a secrecy flow of word choice that assures the recipient that the document is one they asked for, and it is private; hence, it should not be shown to other people.

After Smith unleashed the virus to the world, it created traffic of mails in many networks, both governmental and private ones, and this led to many of the companies discontinuing the email programs until different measures of email containment were put in place. This move caused millions of dollars in terms of damage, and an uncountable number of computers and networks were infected with the virus. The estimated damages that were caused by the virus range from eighty million dollars because they disrupted personal computers and business networks, as well as the government and most of its processes.

The virus was invented in such a way that it evaded all anti-virus software and infected different computers that used Windows 95, Windows 98, and other operating systems of computers, including Windows NT. The virus also affected Microsoft word 97 and 2000, where after being regenerated in the recipient's computer, it resent itself to fifty email addresses in the pretense of it being an essential message from colleagues or friends. This means that each computer that was infected by the virus was able to infect fifty more computers, and each of the fifty computers infected the other fifty computers.

This infection spread very quickly all over the world, and this caused endless interruptions and challenges to communications and service delivery to the public (Ayofe, & Irwin, 2010). Computer networks were disrupted by email servers that overcrowded in the systems causing them to overload and shut down. The companies whose emails shut down incurred lots of costs in repairing and cleaning the virus from their systems.

Many people fell for the trap of the Melissa virus as it was created in such a way that it came in a document that claimed to provide passwords for different websites that contained adult content. The virus did not stop at regenerating itself to the first fifty email addresses in the contact list. It fixed itself in the writing programs, and any document that was created using the programs was infected with the virus meaning that any document produced using the infected computer was also infected hence in the process of sending a document through email, the user unknowingly sent a virus to his friends and colleagues (Ahmad, 2010).

The processing programs of the word developed a lower macro security setting making the documents produced vulnerable to the virus and the adverse effects it came along with. The virus was not designed to steal any information or money from the recipients. Still, it caused a huge overload of emails causing around one million emails to be disrupted and several locations crawling to a halt.

Containment

Experts of cybersecurity contained the Melissa virus in a few days from the time it was developed, and many networks were returned to their full functioning. The FBI used the strategy of warning the United States citizens about the virus, how it was spread, and the effects it had on the computers and email networks (Alazab, Venkatraman, Watters, Alazab, & Alazab, 2011).

The public was alerted about the attack and how they could stay safe from it, and this move helped a lot to deal with the further spread of the virus and the cleaning of the affected systems. Smith, the virus developer, was arrested and arraigned in court, where he pleaded guilty and was jailed for twenty months with a fine of five thousand dollars. He was also banned from accessing any websites and the internet without the permission of the government.

Conclusion

The Melissa virus was considered as the virus which spread the fastest at that era, and it enlightened many Americans about the negative side of websites' emails and the internet. Many of them learned a lesson about the dangers of blindly opening an email and the presence of online viruses in the sites and the damages they could experience from the viruses. The government of the United States and several other cybersecurity experts created improved enhancements to online security, and those enhancements have been in use many years after the attack was contained. After Smith was placed in jail, the Bureau that dealt with cybercrime created new Cyber Divisions whose primary aims were to deal with online crimes and coming up with systems of protecting electronic networks in America from harm.

References

Ahmad, W. (2010). Computer Viruses as a Threat to Home Users. Int. J. Electr. Comput. Sci. IJECS-IJENS, 10(3), 29-34. Retrieved from http://nnt.es/Computer%20Viruses%20as%20a%20Threat%20to%20Home%20Users.pdf

Alazab, M., Venkatraman, S., Watters, P., Alazab, M., & Alazab, A. (2011). Cybercrime: the case of obfuscated malware. In Global Security, Safety and Sustainability & e-Democracy (pp. 204-211). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-33448-1_28

Ayofe, A. N., & Irwin, B. (2010). CYBER SECURITY: CHALLENGES AND THE WAY FORWARD. Computer Science & Telecommunications, 29(6). Retrieved fro http://www.academia.edu/download/46383452/Cybersecurity_Challenges_and_the_way_forward.pdf

Schjolberg, S. (2014). The History of Cybercrime: 1976-2014. BoD-Books on Demand. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=hmiWBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA11&dq=Schjolberg,+S.+(2014).+The+History+of+Cybercrime:+1976-2014.+BoD%E2%80%93Books+on+Demand.&ots=K1ywe22e53&sig=gVdy0RDjrLaFkCIwvTRlTs8P3VU

Ubarhande, S. D. (2011). Computer Viruses'. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 2(12). Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.301.9361&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Dobrovolsky, D., Rogalyova, M., Gerasina, O. V., & Ivanchenko, I. A. (2014). From the History of the Most Dangerous Viruses. Retrieved from http://ir.nmu.org.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/148333/97.pdf?sequence=1