Context: 

• The services at the AIIMS in the national capital were affected for the 7th consecutive day, after the hospital’s server was subjected to a ransomware attack.

What are Cyber Attacks?

• It is a malicious and deliberate attempt by an individual or organization to breach the information system of another individual or organization.
• There are various types of cyberattacks like malware, phishing, denial of service attacks, etc.

Different types of Malware:

• Malware is the shortened form of malicious software. It is the general term for any program that is designed to damage, disrupt, or hack a device. Malware includes viruses, Ransomware, spyware, Trojan, adware, etc.
• Viruses are malicious pieces of code that infect your device without your knowledge. They can affect your device’s performance, delete files, send spam, and even corrupt your hard drive. They multiply and spread to other machines, often before you’re aware of an infection.
• Ransomware is malicious programs that block access to your device until you pay a ransom fee to its creator. It is often very difficult and expensive to remove.
• Spyware is software that spies on you, tracking your internet activities in order to send advertising (Adware) back to your system.
• Worm is a program that replicates itself and destroys data and files on the computer. Worms work to “eat” the system operating files and data files until the drive is empty.
• Trojan is a type of malware that are written with the purpose of discovering your financial information, taking over your computer’s system resources, and in larger systems creating a “denial-of-service attack” which is making a machine or network resource unavailable to those attempting to reach it. Example: Google, AOL, Yahoo or your business network becoming unavailable.
• Phishing is a cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone, or text message. This is done by someone posing as a legitimate institution to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords.

Steps taken by the Government to spread awareness about cyber-crimes:

• Online cybercrime reporting portal has been launched to enable complainants to report complaints pertaining to Child Pornography/Child Sexual Abuse Material, rape/gang rape imageries or sexually explicit content.
• A scheme for establishment of Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) has been established to handle issues related to cybercrime in the country in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.
• Establishment of National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) for protection of critical information infrastructure in the country.
• All organizations providing digital services have been mandated to report cyber security incidents to CERT-In expeditiously.Cyber Swachhta Kendra (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre) has been launched for providing detection of malicious programmes and free tools to remove such programmes.
• Formulation of Crisis Management Plan for countering cyber-attacks and cyber terrorism.