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Abstract
Millions of customers are put at risk of identity theft after hackers are stealing their personal data that include the names, email and postal addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth from many ecommerce platforms. While extremely serious, such attacks are becoming increasingly common. Hackers and other individuals are using increasingly sophisticated methods to obtain personal information from unsuspecting users. Cybercriminals are targeting more connected devices, including computers in the manufacturing, farming and health care sectors. This trend is going to increase as more and more devices are becoming connected to each other with the wide spread adaptation of Internet of Things (IOT) devices. This article is aimed at giving a basic understanding on the different types of threats that is lurking around us in the cyberspace.
Key Words: Cyber Security, Cyber Threats, Internet Threats, Cybercrime, Phishing, Spam.
Introduction
According to Internet Security Threat Report (Symantec, 2017) published by Norton, India ranks fourth globally and second in Asia, Pacific and Japan as source of overall malicious activity. India also ranks second for threats of Spam and Bots, a significant increase from the 2016 at eighteenth and seventeenth rank respectively (Microsoft, 2017). India lost close to 30 billion USD due to cybercrime in the year 2016 (Symantec, 2016). As we are becoming more and more dependent on technology, the vulnerabilities are also rising. But most of us are overconfident to the extent that cyber threats are not going to impact us and end up underestimating the threats and become easy victims to it.
Literature Review
Eric. C. Clemons and Joshua S. Wilson (Clemons & Wilson, 2015) in their research highlighted the risky behavior of internet users that can be harmful or very embarrassing to them in the future when they transact online. Andrea J.S. Stanaland and May O. Lwin, (2013) say that the technological advancements have made the internet a penetrating force in today's consumer marketplace. This has inturn increased the ability of marketers to collect and disseminate information electronically. The authors point out, based on the study done by Roger 1998 and Taylor, 2004 that the consumer privacy is at considerable risk as the rapid advancement in technologies have led to considerable intrusions in online activities.
By 2020, cybercrime damages will cost the...