“Cyber Crime in India”

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Contents
• What is Cyber Crime?
• History of Cyber Crime.
• Types of Cyber Crime.
• Mode and Manner of Committing Cyber Crime.
• What is IT Law & Cyber Law?
• Cyber Crime in India.
• Recommendations.

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What is Cyber crime?
• Cyber crime is simply defined as crimes that are directly related to
computers and using computers. 

• An increasing number of domestic and international criminal

activities are using the Internet. Computers and other electronic
devices can be tools to commit crime or are targeted by criminals.
A personal computer connected to the Internet without protection
may be infected with malicious software in under a minute.

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• Cybercrime is one of the fastest-growing criminal activities on the
planet. It covers a huge range of illegal activity including financial
scams, computer hacking, virus attacks, stalking by e-mail and
creating websites that promote racial hatred.

• Cybercrime has been used to describe a wide range of offences,

including offences against computer data and systems (such as
“hacking”), computer- related forgery and fraud (such as
“phishing”), content offences and copyright offences..

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History of Cyber Crime
• In the early decades of modern information technology (IT), computer
crimes were largely committed by individual disgruntled and dishonest
employees.

• Physical damage to computer systems was a prominent threat until the 1980s.

• Criminals often used unauthorized access to subvert security systems as they

modified data for financial gain or destroyed data for revenge.

• As telecommunications technology spread throughout the IT world,

programmers began writing malicious software, including self-replicating
programs, to interfere with personal computers.

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• As the 1990s progressed, financial crime using penetration and subversion of
computer systems increased.

• The types of malware shifted during the 1990s, taking advantage of new
vulnerabilities and dying out as operating systems were strengthened.

• Illegitimate applications of e-mail grew rapidly from the mid-1990s onward,

generating torrents of unsolicited commercial and fraudulent e-mail.
• The most common cyber crimes during this time were phishing scams,
cyber stalking, computer viruses, and identity theft.

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 Types of cyber crime
Target group of Target personal
computer computer
devices devices

Denial of
service

Against Against
Malware Against Govt.
Person Property

Computer Transmission Computer Terrorize

Viruses of indecent Vandalism international
material Govt.
Harassment Transmission Cracking
(social, of harmful into military
religious programs maintained
etc.) website

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 Modes and manner of committing crimes

1.Unauthorized access
Unauthorized access means any kind of access without the permission of either the rightful
owner or the person in charge of a computer, computer system or computer network.

2.Hacking
Every act committed towards breaking into a computer and/or network is hacking. Hackers
write or use ready-made computer programs to attack the target computer.

3.Trojan Attack
The program that act like something useful but do the things that are quiet damping. The
programs of this kind are called as Trojans.

4.Email spoofing
Email spoofing refers to email that appears to have been originated from one source when it
was actually sent from another source.

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5.Virus and Worm attack:-
A program that has capability to infect other programs and make copies of itself and
spread into other programs is called virus.
Programs that multiply like viruses but spread from computer to computer are called as
worms.

6.Script-kiddies
Crackers do more than just spoiling websites. Novices, who are called "script-kiddies" in
their circles, gain "root" access to a computer system, giving them the same power over a
system as an administrator – such as the power to modify features. They cause damage by
planting viruses.

7.Phishing scams and fraud

A ‘phisher’ may use spoof emails to direct a computer user to fraudulent websites to elicit
a transfer of money, or sensitive information such as passwords or credit card
details, from the user.

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 What is IT Law and Cyber Law
• IT Law is a set of legal enactments, currently in existence in several countries,
which governs the digital dissemination of both (digitalized) information and
software.

• Cyber law or Internet law is a term that encapsulates the legal issues related to
use of the Internet. It is less a distinct field of law than intellectual property or
contract law, as it is a domain covering many areas of law and regulation. Some
leading topics include internet access and usage, privacy, freedom of expression.

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 Why India?

A rapidly growing online user base

 121 Million Internet Users

 65 Million Active Internet Users, up by 28% from 51 million
in 2010
 50 Million users shop online on Ecommerce and Online
Shopping Sites
 46+ Million Social Network Users
 346 million mobile users had subscribed to Data Packages.

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 Cyber Crime In India

 The majority of cybercrimes are centered on fraud and Phishing,

 India is the third-most targeted country for Phishing attacks after
the US and the UK,
 Social networks as well as ecommerce sites are major targets,
 6.9 million bot-infected systems in 2010,
 14,348 website defacements in 2010,
 6,850 .in and 4,150 .com domains were defaced during 2011,
 15,000 sites hacked in 2011,
 India is the number 1 country in the world for generating spam.
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 Cost Of Cyber Crime In India (2010)

 29.9 million people fell victim to cybercrime,

 $4 billion in direct financial losses,
 $3.6 billion in time spent resolving the crime,
 4 in 5 online adults (80%) have been a victim of Cybercrime,
 17% of adults online have experienced cybercrime on their mobile
phone.

Source: Norton Cybercrime Report 2011

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 Cyber Laws in India
Under The Information Technology Act, 2000

CHAPTER XI – OFFENCES – 66. Hacking with computer system.

(1)Whoever with the Intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to
cause Wrongful Loss or Damage to the public or any person
Destroys or Deletes or Alters any Information Residing in a
Computer Resource or diminishes its value or utility or affects it
injuriously by any means, commits hack.

(2) Whoever commits hacking shall be punished with imprisonment up

to three years, or with fine which may extend up to two lakh rupees, or
with both.
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Information Technology Amendment Act,
2008
Section – 43,
Destroys, Deletes or Alters any Information residing in a computer
resource or diminishes its value or utility or affects it injuriously by
any means;

Steals, conceals, destroys or alters or causes any person to steal,

conceal, destroy or alter any computer source code used for a
computer resource with an intention to cause damage;

“If any person, dishonestly, or fraudulently, does any act referred to in

section 43, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which
may extend to two three years or with fine which may extend to five
lakh rupees or with www.engineersportal.in
both.” [S.66]
S.66A - Punishment for sending offensive messages through
communication service, etc.
 Any person who sends, by means of a computer resource or a
communication device;
 Any information that is grossly offensive or has menacing
character; or
 Any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose
of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult,
injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will,
persistently makes by making use of such computer resource or a
communication device;
 Any electronic mail or electronic mail message for the purpose of
causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead
the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages;
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S. 66C - Punishment for identity theft

“Whoever, fraudulently or dishonestly make use of the

electronic signature, password or any other unique identification
feature of any other person, shall be punished with imprisonment of
either description for a term which may extend to three years and
shall also be liable to fine which may extend to rupees one lakh”

S. 66D - Punishment for cheating by personation by using

computer resource

“Whoever, by means of any communication device or computer

resource cheats by personation, shall be punished with
imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to
three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to one
lakh rupees. “
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S. 66E - Punishment for violation of privacy.

“Whoever, intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or

transmits the image of a private area of any person without his or
her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that
person, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to
three years or with fine not exceeding two lakh rupees, or with
both”

S. 67 A - Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material

containing sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form

“Whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published or

transmitted in the electronic form any material which contains
sexually explicit act or conduct shall be punished on first
conviction with imprisonment of either description for a term
which may extend to five years and with fine which may extend to
ten lakh rupees” www.engineersportal.in
S. 67 C - Preservation and Retention of information by
intermediaries.

“(1) Intermediary shall preserve and retain such information as may

be specified for such duration and in such manner and format as the
Central Government may prescribe.

(2) Any intermediary who intentionally or knowingly contravenes

the provisions of sub section (1) shall be punished with an
imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall
also be liable to fine.”

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 Recommendations
 More Public awareness campaigns
 Training of police officers to effectively combat cyber crimes
 More Cyber crime police cells set up across the country
 Effective E-surveillance
 Websites aid in creating awareness and encouraging reporting of
cyber crime cases
 Specialised Training of forensic investigators and experts
 Active coordination between police and other law enforcement
agencies and authorities is required.

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 How to Tackle Such Activities?

1.Antivirus And Anti Spyware Software:

Antivirus software consists of computer programs that attempt to

identify and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software.
Anti spy wares are used to restrict backdoor program, trojans and other
spy wares to be installed on the computer.

2.Firewalls:

A firewall protects a computer network from unauthorized access.

Network firewalls may be hardware devices, software programs, or a
combination of the two. A network firewall typically guards an internal
computer network against malicious access from outside the network.
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3.Cryptography:

Cryptography is the science of encrypting and decrypting information.

Encryption is like sending a postal mail to another party with a lock code
on the envelope which is known only to the sender and the recipient. A
number of cryptographic methods have been developed and some of
them are still not cracked.

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 The Future of Cyber-Crimes in India
Continued Website Hacks.

Data and Information theft.

Increasing phishing attacks on Ecommerce

and Financial Websites

Cybercriminals targeting Social and

Professional Networks

Threats directed at the Mobile Platform:

Smartphones and Tablets
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 Conclusions

 Cybercrime greatly affects individuals, businesses, and

national security due to the pervasiveness of the Internet .

 Different countries should work together and use legal,

organizational, and technological approaches to combat
cybercrime
• To reduce the damage to critical infrastructures
• To protect the Internet from being abused

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