JAWAHARLAL NEHRU TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY HYDERABAD B.Tech III CYBER SECURITY Previous Question Paper (February/March - 2022 - R16)

Cybercrimes are broadly categorized based on the target of the attack and the nature of the criminal activity. The primary categories include crimes against individuals, crimes against property, and crimes against the government.

1. Crimes against Individuals: This category involves targeting specific persons to cause physical, mental, or financial harm. Current trends include Cyberstalking, where perpetrators use social media to harass victims, and Identity Theft, where personal data is stolen to commit fraud or access financial accounts.
2. Crimes against Property: These involve the unauthorized access or destruction of digital assets. Notable examples include Ransomware, which encrypts a victim's data and demands payment for decryption, and Phishing, where attackers use deceptive emails or websites to steal credentials or sensitive corporate information.
3. Crimes against Government: These are acts intended to destabilize national security or public infrastructure. A prominent trend is Cyber-terrorism, which involves attacks on critical infrastructure like power grids or banking systems, and State-sponsored Espionage, aimed at stealing classified intelligence or intellectual property.
4. Financial Crimes: Often overlapping with other categories, these focus on monetary gain. Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a current major trend where attackers impersonate executives to trick employees into authorizing fraudulent wire transfers.

In the current landscape, these crimes are increasingly facilitated by AI-driven automation, which allows attackers to generate sophisticated deepfakes for social engineering or automate vulnerability scanning at scale, making these threats more persistent and difficult to detect.