Overview of Cyber Crime

Offences that are committed by modern telecommunication such as computers, networks and internet is known as Cyber Crime(Bouhours& Chon, 2014). There is over six trillion dollars loss of revenue in the cyber-crime estimated each year. Some sort of cyber threat affects more than half of the computer users around the world of all each year. It can even cause loss of lives.

2017 was the year of cybercrimes. There were more than 80,000 crimes reported over that year. There was a huge loss of data and revenue had been estimated by the cyber-crime reports and journals(Perlman, Kaufman, & Speciner, (2016).. This case study will throw light on one of these cases that have caused a huge impact over the people with time. The case study taken under consideration is Uber data breach. The case study will provide an overall information about how it originated, what impact they had on people and what was the step taken to minimize the chances of threat in future.

The origin of the Uber data breach(Feeney& companies Uber (2015) occurred at the software repository GitHub (Zaidman,2014). The GitHub is a software platform where the developers host and see to each other’s code. The Uber did not have any idea about how the developer’s private account were hacked. According to the Rapid 7, the software security firm it was stated that there is carelessness regarding the security framework(Casalnuovo, et al.2015).  According to one of the investigators of the case said, “There is a loophole in the log in credential security. Being stringent regarding the log in credential is like using the account which can be misused in any point of time”.

According to CNBC in November 21, 2017. It was reported that the in 2016 Uber, the cab company had faced the data breach affecting the information of more than fifty million user worldwide. According to the news report, that states the company had paid a ransom of the 100,000 dollars to the hackers to delete, remain quiet about the breach. The cab company was facing a huge defame in the year 2017 (Calo & Rosenblat, 2017). The taking. The newspaper, the social media and tech journals were filled with the daily certainties of new allegations about the company. The company has been charged for many cases like behavioural issues, assault on the former employee, illegal driving in few countries. The massive data breach was the huge set back to the company and it have caused have a huge disintegration to the brand that once used to be the largest cab company online.

The Origin of Uber Data Breach

The cybercrime reported here is threat to data security is the data breach and hacking, data breach is stealing or the access of the data without the authorisation or permission taken from the data. The hacking is having the unauthorised access to the network or the system. The loss of the sensitive data of over 57 million people worldwide was a nightmare coming true for the Uber. The data included location details, the personal data including email ids and phone numbers, financial credential like bank details, credit card information. The data breach affected the information of 60,000 drivers who were assured that their card details are safe with the organization. This data breach incident is considered as one of the worst cybercrime cases in the history of the world.

The massive data breach have disrupted the data of more than half a billion of the application users worldwide (Elhai, Levine, & Hall, B. J. (2017).. The main target of this incident was the major cloud of the cab-hailing giant, which had its services in 100 countries and 425 cities worldwide. Since the company had, the biggest network of the cab services, countless people would have joined the cloud through amazon web services(Amazon, E. C. (2015) in order to be benefited with the services company provides. The largest cab providing company could not save the data of the drivers employed. It was reported through the tech report that about 60000 drivers’ credit card credentials were breached even when the company ensured the security of their data. The cases if the personal information streamed in the social media and news channels and impact was disturbing. The cases of fake calls, extortion were the after effects these breach. The grave cases of location misleading and kidnapping was also reported after this case.

According to the CNBC, the popular news channel. It was mentioned that company tried to cover up the incident by paying more than 10000 dollars to the hackers to delete the data and keep the news discrete about the breach from the people. The mass data breach incident was a bad incident for the company but hiding it from the people was a big reason for the loss if trust from the market and the customers. The covering up of the incident added more barriers in the growth of the organisation.

With the evolution of the technology, the cybercrime has also upgraded itself. The cybercrime that once just deny the access to the services through the internet have now been so vast that can even cause physical damage to people and systems from very distance. Data breach came in existence in us in 2005 and since then are 4500 reports of data breach recorded each year (Chen, Mislove, & Wilson,2015). The data breach was first limited to the access denial. With the growth in technologies like cloud storage, social media, electronic payments the life have been easier for the people. This in contrary have turned out to give opportunities to the hackers to get access the information easily. The internet is a vast collection of networks and accessing information about anything or anyone can be easily accessed if there is no security framework to stop them. In this case, the data breach have been observed in this case because the hackers were able to retrieve the log in credentials, which was used by the uber engineers. This gave them access to their amazon web service portals leading to massive leak of the database that contains the personal information of all the users and employees in the company. The onset of the data breach occurred in 2015 and affected the company for more than six months and the ransom was paid in October 2016 in order to delete the data and keep the news from the people(Grabosky,2016). The CEO of the company in order to keep the transparency declared about the breach to the people.

Impact of Uber Data Breach

The data breach news lost the people trust over Uber the company faced a huge loss of their customers and this gave in opportunities to the other companies in the same companies to grow better than the organisation(Bhattacharya,2015). Many people uninstalled the app for they were anxious about their data from hacking. The company had a chain of bad decisions and the company was defamed as the company that had no respect for law. The Uber was banned in many countries for its behavioural and a long list blunders that have been committed in an organization. The drivers left the jobs and joined other industry. According to the tech report, the 2015 breach affected over 50 million people sensitive data including security card numbers, credit card details, birthdates, address and email ids. The company face a lot of allegation from the government issues(Ajayi,2016).. The company lost its image in the market and the chief security officer was fired from the organisation. The company had a new management team hired to repair the damage but that was not enough for the company to overcome the challenges. The news channels, the social media networks were streamed with all the news against Uber. Uber had to pay a huge compensation to their drivers whose data was lost in the incident. Paying the ransom to hacker without any guarantee that the data is deleted or not was one of the biggest mistake of the company. The concealment of issue was the crime than the data breach. Had the company told the customers before they would not have lost their customers’ trust? They could have revealed the problem and then increased their speed and efficiency in building a better security to prevent any loopholes in data framework.

Another loophole in this case was human vulnerability. The company Uber paid the ransom to the hackers that encourage new crimes for the hackers rather than reporting about it to the law. They should have taken the step to solve the cyber issues rather than paying money to the hackers. They took a long time for their users to know about their data leakage.  In order to maintain a better professional relation with the customers the company needs to reveal about any incident to the user in 72 hours. This would provide the customers enough time to secure their data or take steps on their side. The concealment for more than a year have created a huge difference in between the market and the organisation. The VTC Company was to its near end if it could not compensate the problem as such.

Types of Cyber Crime

The CEO of the company who step up to maintain a clean transparent relationship with the customers revealed their mistake about the concealment of the data breach that was hidden for over a year made the response of this operation( Bajpai, & Sood ,2018). Featured in this. The employees who were involve in the incident where fired and a new management team was hired for the resolving the security issues in the application software of the company. The company have to go through many of the lawsuits from different countries as per the leakage of the information. The company has to pay 1000 dollars per driver. The company paid 13.5 million dollars as the compensation of 13.5 million dollars.

The CEO of the company accepted the mistake; the company has to comply with the state data breach and the consumer protection law. The company has two pay a great attention regarding the data stored in the cloud. The company ensured that the log in details of the developers could be more secure. The company provided better security option for the users to build their trust over the company. The company had been solving all the cases it has been alleged for in different countries. The company has restricted is database and have secured their IP address to prevent any more hacking of their system. The company focused on the good will marketing rather than getting demotivated with all the negativities raised in the market. the company provided free rides in Sydney. The company allowed the drivers to control their data, they not only can control their data on personal basis . The Uber provided the company with  better privacy policy.

The company in order to prevent any further security issues took the following step in order to improve its image in the market.

• The company allowed the drivers to control their data and comply with the state data breach and customer Personal information act to ensure that there is no further leakage of the information of the data. The company have solved the entire legal allegation that have been filed against them and agreed under the government laws for providing better policies for the customers and users. The two step verification, the GPS data safety that have been taken in as the part of the breach(Chouhan,2017).
• The steps as ride check has been adopted by the Uber to ensure the safety of the riders in the cab. In case of any technology crash, the driver’s smartphones are installed with the sensors in order to track the movement on the cab the riders boarded in, the Uber also have installed safety toolkit and 911 assistance to the riders of the company. The company ensures that there is no data leaked from any source during pool or by the cab drivers. The steps were taken in order to ensure that there is no case of data or information outsourcing without the consent of the individuals and prevent the past cases of kidnapping and assault in future(Hosie, P., & Pforr,2016).
• The company have installed two-step verification procedure for the riders so that they could ensure that there is no sleath access of the application or unauthorised log in to the application. The two-step verification also ensure the security of the personal data of the users if they use a new device. A third party authentication system aids the company to check the user’s account setting and verify the certified user. This could be done with the help of other application like Duo and Authy. The company wanted to provide more security to the user regarding the account settings. Sending verification code over the phone would provide the access of the permission to verify the account setting and email id could verify the user.
• The address anonymity is one of the best step that have been taken by the user to maintain the personal information of the user safe. The address anonymity would not disclose the actual address of riders’ residence providing better form of security for the user. The name and the required information will be shown to the driver but the location and residence address will remain anonymised.
• The Uber has taken steps in field data analytics by keep visualising, monitoring the cabs through GPS algorithm, creating more friendly way to create a better relationship with the customers. The company provided biometric verification for the drivers to secure their data.
• The Uber provided an extra team for managing all the security issue by providing the task to the separate management team(Pathan,2016).

Conclusion:

The report mainly focuses on the cybercrime incident depicting different consequences over the organization and the stakeholders. The organisation mainly reported in this case is Uber which is a big cab facility providing giant with the business running in 425 cities worldwide. The incident was discussed to be the most impacted cybercrime in 2017. The mass impact have defamed the company and have incurred a huge loss of revenue . the report discuss the overall impact of the cybercrime in this case study and what improvements was made by the organization to compensate the set backs it faced after the data breach and hacking.

The Evolution of Cyber Crime

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