Cybercrime Laws in India: Types and Remedies.

Introduction

Cybercrime is a sort of crime that occurs in the virtual realm known as “Cyberspace.” The term “cyberspace” refers to a very vast area with no boundaries, as we can see in the current day, life is becoming a lot easier and faster, which was not the case previously. Because of recent technological breakthroughs, this can be referred to as the Cyber era. As a result of this era, communication with the rest of the world has become much stronger and more efficient.

For example, in the past, one had to stand in a long queue in railway stations to get tickets booked, and if one wanted some cancellations, he had to stand in another massive queue, but now we only have to make a few button presses to get our tickets booked, and the same goes for cancellations.

A person can damage another person and make the said person a victim in two ways these days: offline, also known as physical damage, or online, by attacking the person’s computer, which can be a PC, laptop, smartphone, or another device, in which the attacker can damage personal files, useful content, manipulate media files, and many other things. Cybercrime is a crime committed in cyberspace between two organizations, namely an attacker computer on one side and a victim computer on the other. The attacker is the one who, with criminal intent, attempts to harm the victim by using numerous instruments.

13 types of Cybercrime

As previously said, cybercrime focuses on the attacker computer and the victim or target computer, and it can impact an individual, his property, or his image in the society at large. As a result, there are different forms of cybercrimes that we encounter nowadays; we will explore a few of them below.

1. Hacking: In layman’s terms, hacking is gaining unauthorised access to the victim’s computer and damaging the content or data files stored on it. Hackers are mostly programmers who have in-depth understanding of computers, their internal files, flaws, and virtual doorways to gain illegal access. White Hat Hackers and Black Hat Hackers are the two sorts of hackers. White Hat Hackers are those that hack computers for the sake of security, such as National Cyber Security Experts, whereas Black Hat Hackers are those who hack computers with a malicious intent or to damage others.
2. Data Spying: It is used to spy on sensitive information or data on the target computer. The attacker does it remotely.
3. Data diddling: it is an attack that includes modifying raw data before processing it and then changing it back once the processing is finished.
4. Salami attack: This is a recently found cyber-attack that is used to commit financial crimes. Example: A bank employee inserts a programme into the bank’s server that deducts a negligible amount of money from each customer’s account (say Rs.3), which is then transferred to the employee’s (attacker’s) account. This a multiple victim crime.
5. Internet time theft: As the term implies, the attacker takes the user’s paid internet time.
6. Virus/worm bombing: In this case, the attacker injects the virus into the target’s computer using an external device such as a flash drive or through spam emails, and if the attacker wants to harm other computers as well, the attacker uses worms that multiply and spread in other computers, damaging or manipulating the files of the computers connected to the target’s computer.
7. Cyber-stalking is tracking the victim’s movements throughout the internet by posting remarks (threatening) on bulletin boards frequented by the victim and accessing chat rooms frequented by the victim to harass and bully them.
8. Cyber/child pornography: Obscene pornographic content online in websites, made using a computer, sent using a computer, or downloaded through any website, modifying any photo with an obscene picture, all of this is considered a cybercrime. As sharing porn is still illegal in India.
9. Cyber defamation: Any act, gesture, word, deed, or other action in cyberspace that is not true in nature and is intended to destroy a person’s reputation on the internet or even offline is considered a cybercrime, specifically cyber defamation.
10. Money laundering : Over the internet it is a method of concealing unlawfully obtained wealth. Money laundering operates by moving funds through intricate and complicated financial transactions that can deceive anybody attempting to trace and evaluate the transactions.
11. Credit card fraud: Millions of rupees are lost as a result of someone hacking into the database where the card’s information is stored and stealing money from the account holder. In addition, a new device known as a skimmer is now installed in card swiping machines, which collects the card number as well as the Pin, which is then used to empty the bank account.
12. Cyberterrorism: In this case, tools are used to disrupt national infrastructure security by shutting down energy, transportation, and communication systems, compelling the government to submit reports. Cyber-terrorism includes online abuse, internet bomb threats, and other technology-driven crimes.
13. Copyright, patent or design infringement, software piracy, industrial piracy, and corporate piracy are all examples of intellectual property offences.

What are the Legal Remedies against Cyber-bullying?

These are only a handful of the cybercrimes that exist in many domains of cyberspace; there are many more that have yet to be identified. The number of solved cases is far lower than the number of unresolved cases, and the crime rate is growing every day in tandem with internet usage and technical improvement.

There are legal remedies available to victims of cybercrime, which are overseen by the country’s judicial system.

There was an enactment of legislation to demonstrate the boundaries to these types of attacks for the commission of Cybercrimes, namely the Information Technology Act, 2000, which was subsequently updated in the year 2008 and is generally referred to as the Cyber-law by the general public. This Act establishes sanctions and compensation for technology-related offences. If a person is a victim of cybercrime, he has the option of going to court to pursue legal action against the perpetrator.

1. Section 43A of the Information Technology Act of 2000 gives the victim the opportunity to file a case in court for compensation for the harm done to him, since this section includes fines and compensation for offences such as “damage to the computer, computer system, or computer networks, etc.” Any body corporate that deals with sensitive data, information, or maintains it on its own or on behalf of others and carelessly compromises such data or information shall be responsible under this section and must pay compensation at the discretion of the court.
2. Section 65 of the Act addresses the penalties for “tampering with computer source documents,” stating that “whoever knowingly or intentionally conceals, destroys, or distorts or intentionally or recklessly causes another to hide, destroy, or modify any computer source code used for a computer, computer programme, computer system, or computer network, when the computer source code is required to be kept or maintained by law with the computer source documents.”
3. There are still several loopholes in this IT Act, 2008, since there are freshly found and unknown cyber-offenses for which the law needs to stretch its arms and tighten its grip.
4. There are also offences that are not controlled by the IT Act because they are already protected by other laws, such as “Cyber-defamation,” which is governed by the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the term “Defamation” and its punishment is defined under this Act, so no precise definition is covered elsewhere because the effect of such online offence is the same as that of the offline.

Conclusion

We live in the twenty-first century in a growing country, where technology is advancing and humane’ jobs are being replaced. With the increased use of the internet, the rate of online crime is also rising, for which the victim has legal recourse. However, we have noticed that the number of cybercrime case files is growing faster than the number of solved cases, which is attributable to people’s negligence and a shortage of cyber professionals who can handle these situations.

As a result, we need better training institutions as well as a mandatory branch of Cyber-security topic that will aid in the resolution of cyber-cases and increase trust in security, but we can strive to safeguard ourselves –

1. If we all take care of our personal security by avoiding allowing attackers to exploit gaps in social media,
2. by not falling victim to social engineering and other cyber evils,
3. protecting our data by limiting the access granted to websites,
4. not accessing insecure websites,
5. by not exposing the location of smart-phone locks,
6. When an ATM card’s pin, for example, is used, there are fewer risks of data breach.

No one is totally secure or can be completely secured by any institution or anti-virus, but by using the measures outlined above, we may secure our information, data, gadgets, and ourselves.

References

https://blog.ipleaders.in/critical-analysis-cybercrime-india/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20statistics%20of,and%20534%20FIRs%20in%20Maharashtra.

https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-4998-cyber-crime-in-india-an-overview.html

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/heres-the-reason-behind-60-of-the-cyber-crimes-committed-in-2020-7489071.html