ISSN (Print) : 0974-6846

Indian Journal of Science and Technology, Vol 10(40), DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2017/v10i40/119416, October 2017 ISSN (Online) : 0974-5645

Analysis of Cybercrime Investigation Mechanism in

India
M. Elavarasi1* and N. M. Elango2
Bharathiar University, Coimbatore - 641046, Tamil Nadu, India; elavarainila@gmail.com
1

2
School of Information Technology and Engineering, VIT University, Vellore - 632014, Tamil Nadu, India; elango.nm@
vit.ac.in

Abstract
Objectives: This work contributes for an understanding of cyber crime investigation methodology and its prosecution
in India.Alsoit covers investigation mechanism and various methodologies carried out by police department and Indian
judicial system. Methods/Statistical Analysis: By the method of questioning and gathering of information, cyber crime
investigation begins; after that computer forensic tool is used to find the criminal and also the amount of damage caused
to data. Once the evidences are collected it has to be protected without any loss to the originality. The evidences which are
collected by the investigating officer should organise it and finally submit the report for prosecution. Findings: According
to cyber crime cases in India,it lacks technical experts in handling the cases. Technically trained police officers are very less.
There is a lacuna in judicial department also. The second major issue is Judicial Jurisdiction in handling cyber crime cases.
Judicial and police officers are to be trained regularly. Information Technology Act to be modified and severe punishment
to be given to the criminals. Most of the sections in IT Act having minimum punishment only which has to be changed.
Application/Improvements: Establishment of cyber crime police stations and cyber forensic labs throughout the country
is the need of the hour. By realising the seriousness of this emerging crime government should take steps in improving the
technology in handling the Hi-tech crimes.

Keywords: Cyber Crime, Computer Forensic, Investigation, Jurisdiction, IT Act

1. Introduction 1.1 Steps Involved in Cybercrime

Computers are used as technology for enhancing the
modern life in private, educational, commercial and gov-
ernment organisations. This will increase the productivity
and efficiency of these entities. On the other hand, the use
of technology is the root cause of the criminals for doing
unlawful and unethical activities by using the computers.
Collection of evidences from the computers and IT
enabled devices is a challenging job for the police and
investigating agencies in India. Investigation and collec-
tion of evidences from computers requires knowledge
and computer skill is lacking in most personnel in our
country. This leads to our government to go with agen-
cies1.
Investigation
In the era of digital India, a lot of technology and many
developments are taken place and many new inventions
are still under process. With this increasing technol-
ogy, the crimes related to technology are also increasing.
Many cases are registered under IT Act 2008 and also
got amended in 2010. Some of the cases registered are
data theft, hacking, unauthorized access, pornography,
intellectual property theft, cyber terrorism, viruses and
many. Cybercrime becomes a large threat to the business,
national security and for the common man. The following
are the process of cybercrime investigation methodology2.

*Author for correspondence

 Analysis of Cybercrime Investigation Mechanism in India
1.2 Questioning
Trying to collect the information about the crime, why it
has done who committed and how to precede the inves-
tigations.
1.3  Gathering Information
By checking web cameras, wire taps etc., sometimes the
evidence is collected from the hacker’s computers also.
1.4  Computer Forensics
After the process of questioning and information gath-
ering, e forensic tools are used to collect the evidences.
The collected evidences should be maintained carefully
because it has to be produced in court.
Techniques of cybercrime investigation:
• Searching Who is
• Tracking IP address
• Analysis of webserver logs
• Tracking of email account
• Trying to recover deleted evidences
• Trying to crack the password
• Trying to find out hidden data
A computer forensic investigator should follow some of
the investigation methodologies in order to find out the
truth. They have to follow some procedures to find out the
truth. One should gather the evidences without affecting
the chain of custody of the evidences. Once the evidence
is gathered, one should maintain the original data safely
and should work on the duplicate data. Data integrity
should be maintained by the forensic investigator.
Forensic investigator should follow the following
steps in investigating the cyber forensic cases. The pro-
cess of investigation should not ruin the reputation of the
investigator and also the reputation of the organization.
• F
 or legal opinionthe company should call for a
legal advisor
• The First Response of Procedures (FRP) is pre-
pared by the forensic investigator.
• The evidence from the crime scene is gathered by
forensic investigator and it is afterwards taken to
the forensic lab.
2 Vol 10 (40) | October 2017 | www.indjst.org
• The collected evidences are prepared as bit stream
images and it is converted to MD5 hashing algo-
rithm.
• Before concluding the investigation the forensic
investigator should examine the evidences and
finally he should prepare the investigation report
• Finally the forensic investigator should hand over
the investigation report to the client3.
1.5 Investigation of Cybercrimes Cases by
Police Department
Emerging trends in cybercrimes includes identity theft,
hacking, phishing, spamming and cyber stalking. With
these emerging types of crimes it is time for us to revamp
and reform the investigation methodology which will be
useful for prosecution of cyber crime cases. The police
department has lacuna in this field of investigation.
There are several potholes are existing in the system
for investigation which includes the gap between the
reporting of crimes, arresting the criminals and finally pro-
ducing the criminals for prosecution in cybercrime cases.
According to the section 16of criminal procedure code
and section 2 of Indian penal code will be used in han-
dling the cases including territorial jurisdiction.A legal
and law manual has been framed to avoid the lack of
operational manual which describes the methods of man-
aging and doing on investigation related to cybercrimes.
A standard investigation procedure has to be framed in
order to investigate cybercrimes4.
The cyber crime cells which are operating now
should be equipped with highly technical staff and also
they should have high technology crime and investiga-
tion infrastructure. In addition to the technical experts
should also be recruited for cyber crime cell. The police
lack experience and knowledge in handling cyber foren-
sic tools like data transfer tools, password cracking tools
etc. The forensic laboratories in district level also scared
to handle the datadue to lack of technical skills.
1.6 Handling of Cybercrimes Cases in
Indian Judicial System
With the coming of the Internet, cyber law has become
a newly-visible field. Computer law includes computer
crime, e-commerce and freedom of expression, copy-
right or patent rights, intellectual property rights, and
Indian Journal of Science and Technology

privacy rights. Computer crime involves activities like
illegally using credit cards (because of lying and tricking
people), unauthorized access to computer systems, child
pornography, software piracy, Phishing and cyber stalk-
ing. E-commerce includes with cryptography and data
security. Freedom of expression includes defamation,
censorship and obscenity. Software licensing and trade-
mark protection are covered under intellectual property
rights and copyright act. Privacy rights addresses data
protection and privacy on the Internet5.
In criminal justice system, investigation into the
crime and collection of evidences yields little result unless
the prosecution secure conviction of the criminal. If the
investigation agency is unable to find out the criminal
activity done by the criminal means it will create the sus-
picious behaviour of the investigating agency. Securing
the evidence in computer crime is not easy. In some com-
puter crimes, all the evidences may be electronic evidence
without anyfact-filled story or film evidence or human
witness. Of course, the computer forensic examiner will
be the percipientwitness. The computer forensic exam-
iner must be able to convince the courts about theability
to be used as evidence in a trial, realnessand reliability
of the electronic evidences, and that the evidence has not
been reduced with.
1.7  Jurisdiction issues in cyber crime cases
Jurisdiction is one of the major issues in the cyber crimes
because of its universal nature of the cyber crime. Cyber
space eradicates the territorial concept it is different from
conventional crimes.
Section 75 of IT Act gives special powers in handling
the cyber crime cases outside the jurisdiction and also
getting help from outside the jurisdiction for collecting
the evidences and also help from the law enforcement
agencies in that jurisdiction6.
2.  Judicial Reformations
In India cyber crime cases are registered under three broad
categories they are Information technology act, Indian
penal code, and other State Level Legislations (SLL). The
following are the cases registered under IT Act7.
• Tampering of electronic documents – sec. 65 of IT Act
• Loss or damage to computer utility or resource –
sec 66(1)
• Hacking – sec. 66(2)
Vol 10 (40) | October 2017 | www.indjst.org
M. Elavarasi and N. M. Elango
• Electronic obscenity – sec. 67
• Failures of order of certifying authority – sec. 685
• Unauthorized access to computer system – sec. 70
• Misrepresentation – sec. 71
• Fake digital signature publishing – sec. 73
• Fake digital signature – sec. 74
• Privacy/confidentiality breach – sec. 72
• And many other crimes8.
2.1 Regulation by the Government for
Handling Cybercrime Cases
The Ministry of Home Affairs advised the state govern-
ments and union territories to handle cyber crime cases
by building cyber crime cells equipped with technical
infrastructure. Cyber crime police stations, trained cyber
crime experts for detecting the crimes, filling the cases,
Investigation and prosecution of cyber crime cases.
Government has implemented a plan for developing
cyber forensic tools and setting up cyber forensics labs.
CERT-In (Indian Computer Emergency Response Team)
and also CDAC (Centre for Development of Advanced
Computing) giving advanced training for the law enforce-
ment agencies, cyber forensics labs and also Judiciary
officer on collecting the evidences, analysis and preserva-
tion and finally presenting the collected the evidences in
court.
2.2  Cyber Crime Policing in India
Cyber crime police station should be started in each and
every district. It has to be included with trained person-
nel in handling cyber crime cases. Crime and Criminal
Tracking systems (CCTNS) has been approved by the
central government in the year 2009 under national
E-Governance project was to detect crime nationwide by
using IT enabled tracking and crime detection system.
But still now it is not completed by all the states in India.
It is also a hurdle for the police personals to use the
CTNS because of lack of knowledge in IT enabled devices.
The other issues are there is no facility in police stations
for analysing cyber forensic cases9.
2.3  Registering Complaints Online
As per the guidance from Supreme Court of India, central
government has taken measures to create online complaint
launching portal for handling cyber crime cases including,
online financial fraud, cyber stalking and others.
Indian Journal of Science and Technology 3
 Analysis of Cybercrime Investigation Mechanism in India
This portal will be useful in identifying the current
status of the crime registered online it will allow the police
to track and update the current status and also it will also
be escaladed to the higher officials10.
3. Conclusion
In the upcoming years computers are playing a major role.
In our day to day life without computer we are not going
to do any work. So the increase use of technology will also
lead to increase in crime rate.The cyber crime case has to
be handled very carefully in order to cull out the truth.
Giving training for the police and judicial officers is very
important. India has to develop a lot in handling cyber
crimes cases.
4. Suggestions
There is a need to secure procedures connected with man-
power for prosecution of computer-based crime cases to
tackle them on a war footing. It must be securedof that the
system provides for strict punishment of computer-crime
and computer criminals so that the same acts as a method
to prevent crime for others. Now, most of the offences
committed under the Information Technology Act are
Bailable with punishment up to 3 years imprisonment.
This punishment should be increased to a term which
would change theset of opinions of a computer-criminal
of committing almost the same and like offences again.
Separate bench are needed to be made up equal to for fast
following and recording of Computer cases in an effective
manner. With the constitution of cyber judges, the police
department can prove the talent in cybercrimes cases.
The following are suggestions recommended:
• Internet security to be tightened
• Encryption technology to be used
• Intrusion detection systems to be used
4 Vol 10 (40) | October 2017 | www.indjst.org
• Cyber Law has to be amended
• Cyber forensic lab should be get established in all
the police stations
• Establishment of cyber courts for handling cyber
crime cases.
• Educating the public on cyber crimes cases
• Motivating cyber crime victims for registering
complaint against the criminals.
5. References
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Indian Journal of Science and Technology