In this article, Deepika Vasisht who is currently pursuing Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws from NUJS, Kolkata, discusses Website Defacement and the punishment for it.
The greater part of the world is doing business online, vandals have been coerced to grow within the digital revolution. In lieu of defacing tangible property, hackers are now proficient of defacing the websites of businesses. Internet, which is open for exploration, unfortunately, has the potential to lead to exploitation. It may be used for stealing and destroying valuable information. The confidentiality, which is the most important aspect of various commercial and financial transactions, may easily be breached on Internet.
Understanding website defacement
Defacement is an act of defacing an instance of visibly marring or disfiguring something. An act of voiding or devaluing or nullification of the face value. Website Defacement refers to any unapproved changes made to the outward form of either a single webpage, or an entire site. It is equivalent to drawing graffiti on a wall, only it happens virtually. Websites’ outward form change – pictures and/or words are scribbled across the defaced website. It’s kind of a vandalism in which a website is marked by hackers who are trying to make their mark and it’s a common type of cyber attack.
The subject matter of the defaced web page may be partially changed or may be fully replaced by another page or a hacker may inject code in order to add images, popups, or text to a page that were not previously present or insertion of harmful code with the intent of infecting the computers of explorer, thus making them vulnerable to viral attacks and other problems. In this way, website defacement is not only proficient of embarrassing an attacked business or organization on a visual level, but it may also create problem to its followers. It is because of this that these practices are illegal, and can lead to fines and/or imprisonment when the wrongdoer is apprehended.
Defacement mainly takes place on a famous website with large number of viewers. The vandalism usually contains images of the victim, which are mostly photo-shopped as a joke or to show hatred. The hacker then shows his pseudoname for publicity. The websites that have been defaced are coerced to go offline to undergo maintenance, causing a loss to the organization in the form of wasted time and effort. The defacement of a website will also harm the site’s explorer and provide the impression that the defaced website may not be safe and is incapable of protecting its own website. Defacements usually consist of an complete page. Sometimes, the Website Defacer makes fun of the system administrator for failing to maintain server security. Most times, the defacement is harmless and is only done to show off a system cracker’s skills or for Hacktivism; however it can sometimes be used as a distraction to cover up more sinister actions such as uploading malware or deleting essential files from the server. Website defacement is equivalent to drawing graffiti on a wall, only it happens virtually. Websites’ outward form change – pictures and/or words are scrawled across the defaced website.
How does an intruder deface a web page?
Once an intruder finds a security flaw on a website, he may use some specially designed penetration tools to attack the website. For example, server ,the intruder may encash vulnerabilities on the operating system of the web server or find loopholes in the program codes of a web based application. In this way, the intruder can execute some specific codes hence, can obtain privileges to control the website, and destruct it. For this reason, all unnecessary program privileges in a system must be deleted in order to lessen the effect if the system has been intruded.
Common methods of Defacing
- Via SQL injections – Attackers encash a vulnerability to insert malicious SQL statements in a website. It allows gaining administrative access. Another method of defacement is through FTP once the username and password are obtained.
- Via compromised content management systems – In 2013, attackers compromised numerous websites hosted on publicly available subject matter management systems such as WordPress.
- By gaining access to web servers – Attackers who obtain credentials to gain access to web servers can manipulate sites/pages hosted on these web servers.
Why Websites are Defaced
- to fulfill their political objectives,
- some hack the site of their competent to get the valuable and reliable information to get over them,
- to deface a website for fun – to make joke out of site owners by finding website vulnerabilities and exploiting these to deface the website. These attackers “taunt” the site owners. Website owner’s reputation once their sites are defaced gets tainted
- to deface a website as a means to protest a message or to propogate their cause. The Hackers may take down the pages of those with different beliefs or messages, or may replace their subject matter as a means to “expose” these opponents or make it seem as though the victim of the web defacement is actually with the hacker’s cause,
- to engage in website defacement out of pure malice. For eg.,a hacker may choose to break into a website’s code and leave a message that indicates that the business affiliated with the page has been closed which will drive customers away. The longer such message stays up, the more people will see it and believe that this false information is true, thus, harming business.
Common targets of defacement
Religious and government sites are regularly targeted by hackers in order to display political or religious beliefs, whilst defacing the views and beliefs of others.
What are the potential threats you will face if a webpage has been defaced?
If the content if the web page has been defaced , the web page may spread some fake messages and by that trick explorer, spoil corporate images and reputation, or cause financial loss.They may also secretly tamper other subject matters like hyperlinks on a webpage. The hyperlinks could redirect users to a harmful websites and try to intrude user’s computer by downloading and installing malicious code such as Trojan Horse. This term has its origin in the word ‘Trojan horse’. In software field, this means an unapproved programme, which passively gains control over another’s system by representing itself as an authorised programme. The most common form of installing a Trojan is through e-mail.
What should you do to prevent web defacement?
- configure web servers according to the security guidelines from the service provider and the organisation,
- use strong passwords,
- encrypt sensitive data during data transmission, processing or storage,
- backup your data and programs regularly,
- review the logo of computer systems everyday,
- perform security assessment and audit regularly,
- installing anti- malicious code software such as anti-virus software,
- install firewall,
- install latest security patches,
- scheduling a weekly full scan and enabling Auto Update features of relevant softwares,
- check system and application vulnerabilities on critical servers including web servers,
- monitor for any unapproved changes on critical servers such as web server, DNS server, and database servers,
- monitor for unexpected excessive load/traffic to web server & DNS servers
- monitor for new webpage setup or new URL path accessed,
- monitor for signs of communication with command & control servers from within your network,
It’s always a good idea to have someone looking out for the website and monitoring it regularly. There’s nothing more humiliating than getting to know that one’s website has been defaced days after the fact. By this point, countless explorer have seen the defacement and the owner been in the dark. Although the owner may not have the time to regularly check the website for signs of hacking, it’s smart to enlist the help of a service with the means to monitor at regular periods for defacement. This will allow any problems to be made swiftly so that a company will not be impacted by potential website defacement.
Punishment for Website Defacement
Computers work on operating systems, which are composed of millions of codes. Due to human errors, if some loophole occurs, the cyber criminals use that to penetrate into the system. At the time of crime investigation, collection of evidence plays an important role. Collection of data outside the territorial extent is very difficult. This makes cyber criminals think that they are safe.
There are two main statutes that govern the online criminal liabilities are the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. The IT Act, was passed and enforced on 17th May 2000.
Under Section 66 of IT Act,2000: Hacking with computer system is a cognizable act which is non-bailable and is triable by a first class Magistrate. This section is to protect the information residing in a computer resource and to protect the integrity and security of computer resources from attacks by unapproved persons seeking to enter such resource. The punishment of the offence under this section is imprisonment up to three years, or with fine up to Rs.2 lakhs or with both. The presence of a criminal intention will differentiate S.66 from S.43 of It Act, 2000.
For Tampering with computer source documents- Under Section 65 of IT Act,2000: Alteration or destruction of any computer source code when the source code is required to be kept or maintained as per law. Imprisonment extending up to 3 years or fine of 2 lakhs.
Conclusion
The very nature of cyber crimes itself brings with it the transboundary effects destroying the legislative wisdom. In India, since we don’t have a super legislation covering all forms of cyber crimes, becoming party to the respective international conventions and treaties is desirable so that we can implement those provisions by enacting relevant municipal laws in that regard.
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