Introduction
With advent of internet, email hacking has become one of the biggest Information Technology (IT) crimes being perpetuated around the globe. Several people and organisations have lost millions of dollars from the activities of the hackers, and while some countries have laws that can be used to prosecute the email hackers, some countries do not have IT law.
The internet creates the advantages of sending letters, pictures and other important documents, and a person can create a free email through websites such as Yahoo, MSN, to mention a few. However, to create an email, a user must register and create an account. Creating an account involves setting up a username and a password that should be known only by a user.
Password is a secret word, numbers, or combination of the two that allow a person to have access to his account. Thus, after creating an account, an email is ready to be used and a user can send letters or message to another person anywhere in the world. A user can also send some important documents to another person or even store some valuable information such bank information, credit card information, or Social Security Number in the email.
With the realisation that email might contain some important message and valuable documents, some unscrupulous people have devised ways to burst into the email accounts of another people to steal information from email box. The devises to enter into another people’s email and steal information in the email is called Email Hacking.
This paper examines the moral issues surrounding the hacking of emails.
The rest of the paper are organised as follows:
First, this paper presents email hacking history and how email hacking started.
Moreover, essay examines the motivations surrounding email hacking. It should be noted that people or an organisation do not hack for the fun of it, there are motivations behind these acts, which can be personal, economic or political motivations.
In addition, this paper reveals how email is being hacked. With increase in advance in Information Technology, many techniques are being used to burst into another people’s email and steal some valuable information.
The other section of the paper examines the effect of email hacking on society and its effect on the society in general. It should noted that stealing of valuable information through email hacking has become a phenomenon in both developed and developing countries and the acts are affecting the society in general.
Moreover, the paper examines the response of the society on email hacking.
Finally, the paper provides the conclusion for the whole essay, which also contains recommendations on how email hacking can be reduced.
Meanwhile, before analysing the motivations behind email hacking, it is essential to gain insight into the history of email hacking.
History of email hacking
Studies reveal that email hacking started between 1950s and 1960s. In those years, hacking was synonymous to computer genius and people with technical ability to master computer. Thus, in those years, hackers were termed “heroes of computer revolution” that is now considered to be criminal acts. Even in those early years, some universities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in United States used their computer laboratories to teach students methods of hacking to improve student’s computer skills.
At these periods, hackings were well financed by large institutions such as MIT and Harvard. The motives behind these were to develop and gain new knowledge in computer security (Best, 2006).
In 1970s, new system of hacking was developed, people devised ways to break into telephone network and make long distant calls free of charge.
In 1980s, many people had had accessed to computer, and during this time, there were many inexpensive computers that were easily available. Thus, this was the time when hacking was beginning to gain popularity. Modem devises to hack began to be at hackers’ reach.
The tendency to pursue the criminal acts was gaining popularity at this time. For example, gangs were forming called the Electronics gang with the mission to break into the privacy of computer securities.
It should be noted that in these previous years, email hackings were never known because the internet was never being used in the public.
In the 1990s, the internet became the public usage and with launching of World Wide Web (WWW), several organisations allowed people to create accounts and personal emails to communicate to friends, relatives and even organisations (Clarke, Clawson, and Cordell, 2003).
Communications through email leads to the driven urge to breaks into other peoples’ emails with the intentions to steal sensitive information. In 2000s, email hacking is the order of the day, there are many-sophisticated software that can spy on the usernames and passwords of the email owners to gain access to other people email messages. Formerly, hackers were concentrated in USA and few advanced countries, with advent of internet, email hackers can be found virtually in any country. Email hackers can now be found in Asia, Latin America, North America, in many countries in Europe, and few countries in Africa.
With the increase in email hacking, questions are being raised in the business circles on what motivate the email hackers to perpetuate these criminal acts.
Motivation behind emails hacking
Studies reveal the motivations that make people to indulge in email hackings. Evers (2005) argues that the motivation for email hacking is solely monetary purpose.
Many people receive scam emails that appear to be identical with the trusted corporate company. The main purpose of these scam emails are to trick people to reveal the sensitive personal information, such as bank information, and the main purpose of these acts are to steal money from victims’ accounts (Evers, 2005).
Hines (2004) supports the argument provided by Evers by stating that 7 out 10 people that go online receive phishing emails that advise them to provide their personal information and 15% of these people provide their personal information and were successfully duped (Hines, 2004).
Although, these two authors provide solid arguments on the motives for the email hacking. Nevertheless, not all email hackers are motivated because of money. For example, some young people between the ages of 16 and 30 do hacking to show their expertise in the computer technology. Situation sometimes arises in the chat room where some people boast of having the computer expertise than the other person.
To support this argument Best (2006) points out that some people engage in email hacking just to boast on their ability to ferment art and skills. These people do not have intention to steal money or whatsoever from the individual or organisation. Rather, the basis is only pleasure and play, and these kinds of people are called script kiddies in U.S because these categories of hacker are mostly teenagers and young people between the ages of 18 and 30. It should be noted these group of hackers do not have computer skills because they use automated hacking program to do their email hacking in order to show their group about their expertise in Information Technology (Best, 2006).
Lakhani, and Wolf (2003) who points out that most email hackers indulge in the hacking activities for intrinsic motivation support argument put forward by Best. These include doing something for enjoyment and fun rather than for financial rewards. It should be noted that these hacking group derive enjoyment from the hacking so that it is impossible for them to stop the hacking activities. According to Lakhani and Wolf who state that, “Enjoyable activities are found to provide feelings of creative discovery, a challenge overcome and a difficulty resolved”.
Thus, the enjoyment derived is the basis of principle of email hacking. Sometimes, peer group or social group is formed among the hackers that will only permit the people who have the skills to perpetrate the email hacking into the group (Lakhani, and Wolf, 2003).
All the authors’ argument on the motivation behind email hacking are correct, the motivations that lead people into email hacking should be combinations of financial rewards, showing off the computer skills or programming skills, and for enjoyment purpose. This paper argues that all these factors are the motivations behind the email hackings. While some people may indulge in the email hacking for the purpose of fun, enjoyment and showing off the skills, the motivation for another people may not be the same, some people are motivated because of money. No matter the motivations, email hackings harms the victims. Before discussing the effect of email hacking on society, the next section provides the methods the hackers use in perpetuating email hacking
Methods of email hacking
There are several methods, which email hackers use to accomplish their acts. Due to the technicalities involved in carrying out these tasks, some terminologies are used to describe the tactics the hackers used. Some of hacking tactics are described below:
First, the email hackers may use tactics which Chang (2004) refers as social engineering. This is a tactic hacker uses to launch into the emails of unsuspected person and obtain their personal information. In social engineering, hackers do not need technical skills to accomplish these tasks; hackers only use psychological tricks to gain access to the system. For example, social engineering hackers can disguise as an employee or company executive out of town or country, and contact the IT help desk on the phone, telling them that he has lost his username and password, in a matter of urgency, an hacker will ask the IT help desk for his username and password. If he is able to acquire this information, the email hackers will burst into the company email, and steal valuable information (Chang, 2004).
In addition, a hacker may trick a company employee to download malicious program attachment sent to an employee’s email. The tactics is to gain access to the email of employees through the back door, which will give hackers the ability to have access to personal information. Hackers may also trick an employee to download an attachment that contain virus such as Trojan horse, the trick is to damage the computer of an unsuspected person in order to gain access. For example, email attackers send spyware to 1 out 3 company in the UK to gain access (Chang, 2004)
Moreover, email hackers can attempt to crack a password of unsuspected email user by making use of password cracker. In most online system, the combination of username and password are used to improve the security system of the computer system. Thus, to gain access to passwords, hacker may use dictionary files and combination of dictionary words and numbers. Alternatively, hackers may use only dictionary words to gain access to the computer or hybrid. For example, hackers may use dog1, dog2, dog3, and so on to gain access. It should be noted that these tactics take long time to accomplish, however sometimes email hackers accomplish their tasks. (Chang, 2004).
Presently, most companies have program that protect their computer system from the authorised access, which is called firewall. However, to gain access, hackers may dial telephone number of an organisation, and record the number that answers the telephone call. This can be done through hacker program. Thus, later in the night, hackers will call back the organisation and try to enter the organisational computer system by through the back door (Chang, 2004).
In addition, hacker may burst into the network of the unsuspected user to gather the username and password. The trick is to make use of a program called network packet sniffers, the program can analyse the unencrypted traffic and the hackers can get hold of sensitive information through these methods (Chang 2004).
Finally, email hackers may pose as reputable organisations, for example, there are many organisations with flashy websites that disguise as loan or mortgage companies. In the United States, there are payday loan companies that advertise themselves of giving out loan. In the course of registration with these companies, sensitive information is being asked. The information such as Social Security Number and the victim emails. Having collected this information, the hackers may use the information such as username and password to burst into the emails the unsuspected victims.
It should be noted that the activities of email hackers have caused both financial and psychological damages on society as discussed in the next section.
Effects email hacking on society
There are several financial consequences that email hacking has caused on society. Apart from the society impact, email hacking has caused psychological impact on the people. Report by Majuca and Kesan (2009) reveal the estimation of the financial damages of the email hacking on the society. For example, the cost of email hacking attacks on the companies is huge (Majuca and Kesan, 2009).
Many people and companies fail to report to the police because of the thinking that it would be a waste of time, this is because it is only tiny percentages of the hackers ever get caught. It should be noted that the hackers can be anywhere in the world, and the big problem is that a person in Australia can get access to the computer of another person in U.S. Despite the huge amount of money being lost through hacking, the hackers are difficult to track down.
The financial impact is that millions of dollars are lost into the hands of hackers each year. Apart from monetary value, personal information such Social Security Number, credit card information, or other sensitive information are getting into the hands of email hackers each year, thereby putting financial havoc on the victim (Chang, 2004).
Another damage of email hackers on an individual is that after getting access to email, hacker can reset password and username, which will prevent the person from login. Moreover, email hackers can deliberately delete the sensitive information and files found in the email messages and the victims who do not have a back up file to retrieve these information would end up losing valuable information.
Moreover, most companies affected by hackers have lost customers in their bids to report to police. For example, if companies’ emails are hacked and sensitive information are stolen. If this company report to the police and the matter get into the hand of press, the competitors can quickly use this as a competitive advantage by reporting to the world that they have protective measures to prevent such hacker’s attack. The customers of the attacking company may shift to the rival company, thereby making this company to lose customers.
Despite the financial damages on email attacks on the society, society is helpless to fight back. Moreover, police of most countries do not have technical skills to track down the hackers’ criminal. The damaging effects of email hackers makes the author to examine the response of society on the email hacking.
Society Response
As was discussed in the previous chapter, society is helpless to defend the cyber attack of the email hackers due to the technicality involved. Although, several corporate organisations have set up educational programs to educate their employees on the malicious attachment to the email in order to have access to their computer.
Apart from this, several laws are passed to protect society on the email hackers. For example, there is US law of Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which is to protect people from illegitimately entering into private email of organisation and individual. Wiretap Act is also set up against computer hackers.
Despite these laws, only few hackers are prosecuted because of the difficulties to prove that the hackers actually perpetuate these acts (Chang, 2004).
Conclusion
Hacking of email is one of the IT crimes currently perpetuated virtually all over the world. The paper reveals that this crime has caused havoc to many victims around the world, and the difficulty in tracking down the email hackers is one the main problems that make the attackers to continuing in their acts. The problems of email hacking is that some IT professionals are included in launching these attacks. Although, arguments arise that not many people indulge in email hacking for stealing or financial purpose. Nevertheless, doing email hacking for financial reward or for improving computer skills, bursting into the private email of an individual or a corporate organisation without authorisation is a crime and effort should be made on behalf the governments to fully train the policemen in Information Technology and the techniques to combat the email hacking.
This paper enhances the knowledge of individual, corporate organisation and society as a whole on email hacking and the techniques the hackers use in carrying out their acts.
Index
Email : The is private email address used to send and receive message. It is also used to send and receive document.
E mail hacking: This is the activity of the of some people to enter into private email of an individual or business organisation without authorisation.
Email hacker: These are the people perpetuate in email hacking.
IT law: This is a law to prevent people from breaking IT regulation..
Password : This is secrete word or number or combination of two known only to email owner in order to have access to his inbox.
Phishing : This is the activities of hackers to disguise as reputable organisation to steal people username and password.
Social engineering: This is the trick the email hacker use to steal username and password.
Spyware: This is program that damage computer system to have access to computer system.
References
- Best, K, (2006), Visceral Hacking or Packet Wanking? The Ethics of Digital Code, Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc, UK
- Chang, J, (2004), Computer Hacking: Making the Case for a National Reporting Requirement, Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc, UK.
- Clarke, Z, Clawson, J, Cordell, M, (2003), A brief History of Hacking, Historical Approaches to Digital Media, USA.
- Evers, J, (2005), Hacking for Dollars, CBS Interactive Inc, USA.
- Hines, M, (2004), Caught in a Phishing trap, CBS Interactive Inc, USA..
- Lakhani, K, Wolf, R, G, (2003), Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects, Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc, UK.
- Majuca, R, P, Kesan, J, (2009), Hacking Back: Optimal Use of Self-Defense in Cyberspace, Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc, UK