Akshat Paper

8/8/2019 Akshat Paper

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It is a saying that:

"The modern thief can steal more with a computer than with a gun. Tomorrow's

terrorist may be able to do more damage with a keyboard than with a bomb".

Cyber Crimes

The term cyber crime is a broad term that is usually applied to a broad range of crimes

in which computers are, in some manner, involved. This term, however, is vague and

actually refers to a collection of dissimilar forms of criminal conduct that are powered bydifferent motives.

Every computer system is threatened by the large number of crimes which we usually callcyber crimes, but every computer system does not face an equal risk of being victimized

by all of those crimes.

Any criminal activity that uses a computer either as an instrumentality, target or a means

for perpetuating further crimes comes within the ambit of cyber crime.

As Internet usage continues to rise throughout the world, the threat of cyber crime also

grows. While some of these crimes are relatively harmless and commonplace, others arevery serious and carry with them felony charges.


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y Investment NewsletterWe usually get newsletter providing us free information recommending that investment

in which field would be profitable. These may sometimes be a fraud and may cause ushuge loss if relied upon. False information can be spread by this method about any

company and can cause huge inconvenience or loss through junk mails online.

y Credit Card FraudHuge loss may cause to the victim due to this kind of fraud. This is done by publishing

false digital signatures. Most of the people lose credit cards on the way of delivery to therecipient or its damaged or defective, misrepresented etc.

y SpamThe most common type of cyber crime is spam. While email spam laws are fairly new,

there have been laws on the books regarding "unsolicited electronic communications" formany years.

y FraudCredit fraud is another common form of cyber crime. Certain computer viruses can log

keystrokes on your keyboard and send them to hackers, who can then take your Social

Security number, credit card number and home address. This information will be used bythe hacker for his own means.

y Cyber terrorism against the government organization.Cyber terrorism may be defined to be the premeditated use of disruptive activities, orthe threat thereof, in cyber space, with the intention to further social, ideological,

religious, political or similar objectives, or to intimidate any person in furtherance of suchobjectives

Another definition may be attempted to cover within its ambit every act of cyber

terrorism.

A terrorist means a person who indulges in wanton killing of persons or in violence or in

disruption of services or means of communications essential to the community or in

damaging property with the view to

(1) Putting the public or any section of the public in fear; or

(2) Affecting adversely the harmony between different religious, racial, language or

regional groups or castes or communities; or

(3) Coercing or overawing the government established by law; or


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(4) Endangering the sovereignty and integrity of the nation

and a cyber terrorist is the person who uses the computer system as a means or ends toachieve the above objectives. Every act done in pursuance thereof is an act of cyber

terrorism.

Reasons for cyber crimes:

Hart in his work The Concept of Law has said human beings are vulnerable so rule oflaw is required to protect them. Applying this to the cyberspace we may say that

computers are vulnerable so rule of law is required to protect and safeguard them againstcyber crime. The reasons for the vulnerability of computers may be said to be:

1. Capacity to store data in comparatively small space2. Easy to access3. Complex

4. Negligence

5. Loss of evidence


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Statutory Provisions

The Indian parliament considered it necessary to give effect to the resolution by whichthe General Assembly adopted Model Law on Electronic Commerce adopted by the

United Nations Commission on Trade Law. As a consequence of which the Information

Technology Act 2000 was passed and enforced on 17th May 2000. The preamble of thisAct states its objective to legalise e-commerce and further amend the Indian Penal Code1860, the Indian Evidence Act 1872, the Bankers Book Evidence Act1891 and the

Reserve Bank of India Act 1934. The basic purpose to incorporate the changes in theseActs is to make them compatible with the Act of 2000. So that they can regulate and

control the affairs of the cyber world in a more effective manner.

Provisions of IT Act, 2000 Nature and Punishment

Sec.43 Damage to Computer system etc.Compensation for Rupees 1crore

Sec.66 Hacking (with intent or knowledge) Fine of2 lakh rupees, and imprisonment for 3

years.

Sec.67 Publication of obscene material in e-form

Fine of 1 lakh rupees, and imprisonment of5years, and double conviction on second

offence

Sec.68 Not complying with directions of controller

Fine upto 2 lakh and imprisonment of 3years.

Sec.70 Attempting or securing access to computerImprisonment upto 10 years.

Sec.72 For breaking confidentiality of the

information of computer Fine upto 1 lakhand imprisonment upto 2 years

Sec.73 Publishing false digital signatures, false in

certain particulars Fine of 1 lakh, orimprisonment of 2 years or both.

Sec.74 Publication of Digital Signatures forfraudulent purpose. Imprisonment for theterm of 2 years and fine for 1 lakh rupees.


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Analysis of the statutory provisions

The Information Technology Act 2000 was undoubtedly a welcome step at a time when

there was no legislation on this specialised field. The Act has however during its

application has proved to be inadequate to a certain extent. The various loopholes in theAct are-

y The hurry, in which the legislation was passed, without sufficient public debate, didnot serve the desired purpose.

y Cyber laws, in their very preamble and aim, state that they are targeted at aiding e-commerce, and are not meant to regulate cyber crime

According to Mr. Pavan Duggal the main intention of the legislators has been to provide

for a law to regulate the e-commerce and with that aim the I.T.Act 2000 was passed,which may also be one of the reasons for its inadequacy to deal with cases of cyber

crime.

Positive Aspects of the IT Act, 2000

y Prior to the enactment of the IT Act, 2000 even an e-mail was not accepted under the prevailing statutes of India as an accepted legal form of communication and as

evidence in a court of law. But the IT Act, 2000 changed this scenario by legalrecognition of the electronic format.

y From the perspective of the corporate sector, companies shall be able to carry outelectronic commerce using the legal infrastructure provided by the IT Act, 2000

which was not possible earlier because there was no legal infrastructure to regulatecommercial transactions online.

y Corporate will now be able to use digital signatures to carry out their transactionsonline. These digital signatures have been given legal validity and sanction under theIT Act, 2000.

y In todays scenario, information is stored by the companies on their respectivecomputer system, apart from maintaining a back up. Under the IT Act, 2000, it shallnow be possible for corporate to have a statutory remedy if any one breaks into their

computer systems or networks and causes damages or copies data. The remedy provided by the IT Act, 2000 is in the form of monetary damages, by the way of

compensation, not exceeding Rs. 1, 00, 00,000.

yIT Act, 2000 has defined various cyber crimes which includes hacking and damage tothe computer code. Prior to the coming into effect of the Indian Cyber law, the

corporate were helpless as there was no legal redress for such issues.


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The Grey Areas of the IT Act, 2000

y The IT Act, 2000 is likely to cause a conflict of jurisdiction.y Electronic commerce is based on the system of domain names. The IT Act, 2000 does

not even touch the issues relating to domain names.

y The IT Act, 2000 does not deal with any issues concerning the protection ofIntellectual Property Rights in the context of the online environment.

y As the cyber law is growing, so are the new forms and manifestations of cybercrimes. The offences defined in the IT Act, 2000 are by no means exhaustive. The IT

Act, 2000 does not cover various kinds of cyber crimes and Internet related crimes.Certain crimes which doesnt comes under the ambit of the IT Act, 2000 are-

a) Theft of Internet hours;

b) Cyber theft;c) Cyber stalking;

d) Cyber harassment;

e) Cyber defamation;f) and cyber fraud etc.

y The IT Act, 2000 has not tackled several vital issues pertaining to e-commerce spherelike privacy and content regulation.

y Another grey area of the IT Act is that the same does not touch upon any anti- trustissues.

y The most serious concern about the Indian Cyber law relates to its implementation.The IT Act, 2000 does not lay down parameters for its implementation. It seems thatthe Parliament would be required to amend the IT Act, 2000 to remove the grey areas

mentioned above.

Investigations And Search Procedures

Section 75 of Information Technology Act, 2000 takes care of jurisdictional aspect of

cyber crimes, and one would be punished irrespective of his nationality and place ofcommission of offence. Power of investigation is been given to police officer not below

the rank of Deputy Superintendent of police or any officer of the Central Government ora State Government authorized by Central Government. He may enter any public place,

conduct a search and arrest without warrant person who is reasonably expected to havecommitted an offence or about to commit computer related crime. Accused has to be

produced before magistrate within 24 hours of arrest. Provisions of Criminal ProcedureCode, 1973 regulate the procedure of entry, search and arrest of the accused.


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Problems Underlying Tracking Of Offence

Most of the times the offenders commit crime and their identity is hard to be identified.

Tracking cyber criminals requires a proper law enforcing agency through cyber border

co-operation of governments, businesses and institutions of other countries. Most of thecountries lack skilled law enforcement personnel to deal with computer and even broaderInformation technology related crimes. Usually law enforcement agencies also dont take

crimes seriously, theyve no importance of enforcement of cyber crimes, and even if theyundertake to investigate they are posed with limitation of extra-territorial nature of

crimes.

Measures To Curb The Cyber Crime

Though by passage of time and improvement in technology to provide easier and userfriendly methods to the consumer for make up their daily activities, it has lead to harsh

world of security threats at the same time by agencies like hackers, crackers etc. variousInformation technology methods have been introduced to curb such destructive activities

to achieve the main objects of the technology to provide some sense of security to theusers. Few basic prominent measures used to curb cyber crimes are as follows:

A) Encryption: This is considered as an important tool for protecting data in transit.

Plain text (readable) can be converted to cipher text (coded language) by this method andthe recipient of the data can decrypt it by converting it into plain text again by using

private key. This way except for the recipient whose possessor of private key to decryptthe data, no one can gain access to the sensitive information.

B) Synchronized Passwords: These passwords are schemes, used to change the

password at users and host token. The password on synchronized card changes every 30-60 seconds which only makes it valid for one time log-on session. Other useful methods

introduced are signature, voice, fingerprint identification or retinal and biometricrecognition etc. to impute passwords and pass phrases

C) Firewalls: It creates wall between the system and possible intruders to protect the

classified documents from being leaked or accessed. It would only let the data to flow inthe computer which is recognized and verified by ones system. It only permits access to

the system to ones already registered with the computer.

D) Digital Signature: These are created by using means of cryptography by applyingalgorithms. This has its prominent use in the business of banking where customers

signature is identified by using this method before banks enter into huge transactions.


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Preventive Measures

Prevention is always better than cure. So it is always better to take precautions whileoperating the net. Sailesh Kumar Zarkar, technical advisor and network security

consultant to the Mumbai Police Cyber crime Cell, advocates the 5P mantra for online

security: Precaution, Prevention, Protection, Preservation and Perseverance. "Takesecurity seriously," he says. "If you protect your customer's data, your employee's privacyand your own company, then you are doing your job in the grander scheme of things to

regulate and enforce rules on the Net through our community." A netizen should keep inmind the following things-

1. To prevent cyber stalking, avoid disclosing any information pertaining to

oneself.

2. Always avoid sending photographs online particularly to strangers and chat

friends as there have been incidents of misuse of the photographs.

3. Always use latest and up date anti virus software to guard against virus attacks.4. Always keep back up volumes so that one may not suffer data loss in case of

virus contamination

5. Never send your credit card number to any site that is not secured, to guard

against frauds.

6. Always keep a watch on the sites that your children are accessing to preventany kind of harassment or depravation in children.

7. It is better to use a security programme that gives control over the cookies andsend information back to the site as leaving the cookies unguarded might prove

fatal.

8. The web site owners should watch traffic and check any irregularity on the site.

Putting host-based intrusion detection devices on servers may do this.

9. Use of firewalls may be beneficial.

10. Web servers running public sites must be physically separate and protected

from internal corporate network.


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CONCLUSION:

Capacity of human mind is unfathomable. It is not possible to eliminate cyber crime from

the cyber space. It is quite possible to check them. History is the witness that no

legislation has succeeded in totally eliminating crime from the globe. The only possible

step is to make people aware of their rights and duties and further making the applicationof the laws more stringent to check crime. Undoubtedly the Act is a historical step in thecyber world. Further I all together do not deny that there is a need to bring changes in the

Information Technology Act to make it more effective to combat cyber crime. Crucialaspect of problem faced in combating crime is that, most of the countries lack

enforcement agencies to combat crime relating to internet and bring some level ofconfidence in users.

Its like eye for an eye kind of situation where the technology can be curbed only by an

understanding of the technology taken over by cyber terrorists. Even if the technology ismade better enough to curb the computer related crime there is no guarantee if that would

stay out of reach of cyber terrorists. Therefore Nations need to update the Law whether byamendments or by adopting sui generic system.

There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky, there is one

spectacle grander than the sky,

that is the interior soul

- Victor Hugo


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References

1. White Collar Crimes A debate can be viewed athttp://www.amicus.iupindia.org/WhiteCollarCrimes_ovw.asp

2. Nagpal R- Defining Cyber Terrorism3. Duggal Pawan - Is this Treaty a Treat?4. Duggal Pawan - Cybercrime5. Anusuya Sadhu, The Menace of Cyber Crime, can be viewed at

http://www.legalserviceindia.com/articles/article+2302682a.htm

6. Mr. Duggal's Perspectives on IT Act Amendments can be viewed athttp://www.cyberlaws.net/new/pd_on_ITAmendments.php

7. http://www.naavi.org/8. Gopika Vaidya-Kapoor Byte by byte can be viewed at

http://cybercrime.planetindia.net/byteby_byte.htm

9. Karnika Seth - Phishing the new online cyber crime can be viewed athttp://www.123oye.com/job-articles/cyber-law/phising.htm

10.Information Technology Act, 2000

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