How to Prevent Cyber Crime in India?

How to Prevent Cyber Crime in India?

Author: Snigdha Shandilya & Pritish Kumar Pattnaik

Introduction

The Information and technology act defines cybercrime under it. In today’s technology-driven world, it has led to the birth of crimes under cyberspace, also known as cybercrimes. Our law has come up with various ways to handle these crimes. People also need to be careful and cautious while sharing their personal information online. One can also avoid these crimes by setting up strong passwords and using social networking sites in private mode.

The rise of the technological era brings up new tricks every day through which offences and scams have been committed to cyberspace. The IT act, 2000 lists many types of crime under it and has also taken the initiative of setting up cyber crime cells in different cities of India. The advancement of technology has contributed to crimes like kidnapping, fraud, and hacking and data theft. Although the Internet has made life’s way more easily but has been taken wrong advantages by terrorists to commit white-collar crimes. A man is dependent on the technology for even its basic minimal needs which covers his day to day activities varying from online shopping, ordering food, online gaming, making payments and etc.

 Cyber Crime and Cyber laws in India

Cybercrime has been defined under the IT act as an unlawful act committed with the use of computers as a tool or for targeting it. It is taking place of unauthorized access to a computer system without the knowledge or permission of the actual owner. The most common and trending cybercrimes taking place widely are phishing, spoofing, DoS (Denial of Service) attack, credit card fraud, online transaction fraud, cyber defamation, child pornography, etc.

The main objective of the IT Act is to enable a safe environment and make sure about the effective use of the Internet. Apart from these, it also deals with e-governance, e-commerce, and e-banking. The cyber law also leads to punishment for cybercrime. Some of these crimes have also been amended under IPC which includes fraud, forgery, theft, etc. committed over the internet or through an electronic medium. The punishment for such depends on the type and gravity of the crime committed along with the damage caused due to it.

Causes of Cyber Crime in India

Cybercrime is the easiest way to make large amounts of money in seconds by targeting resourceful people or organizations like banks or financial firms. By hacking sensitive information of such places one can easily transact a huge amount of money. Besides, catching tracing such criminals remains much difficult due to the vulnerability of computers. Some strong reasons for the commitment of these crimes re as follows-

The computer system is easy to access due to the complex technology which can take place by hacking the codes or retina images. The biometric system is easy to fool for bypassing such firewalls and getting into the security system. The computer also can store all the important data in one place which makes it much easier to extract for one’s own profit. The other big reason is the running of these systems on millions of programmed coordinated by humans. The human mind can’t be accurate always and a small loophole or mistake caused by them can be advantageous. The data can also be destroyed easily to erase in form of evidence which creates problems in further investigation.

How to Prevent Cyber Crime?

The cyber law agencies should work efficiently by abiding the law enforcement agencies and IT security organizations. These industries should come together to develop new skills and opportunities. People should always take precautions by using a strong combination of passwords for every other account and try to keep their information and pictures private on social media account by ensuring security settings. One should always be mindful while sharing any information online and be aware of malicious software in mobile devices. Always download the information from trusted sources and keep the operating system up to date which applies patches and software fixes. Your PC should always be laced with anti-virus software and screen lock for additional protection in case you misplace the device. It also acts in defense by blocking the bad traffic from reaching your PC.

How to report Cyber Crime in India?

For reporting a cybercrime in India, one needs to lodge complaints under cyber cells in the respective place of the police station where the crime has occurred. You can also register the report online or offline at a cyber cell or a police station. You can choose to personally visit the police station of such a state or an E mail them. The mail will be forwarded to the cyber cell by the police station. There also exhibits some documentation information for the filing of the complaint which should include-

The server log and hard as well as soft copy of the defaced web page in the case of hacking. You must also provide the details for the access control mechanism and its kind. The attachment must also include the name of suspects if any. In the case of Email abuse, such offending mail must be extracted along with the above-mentioned documents. The copy of the offending mail must be saved into a hard drive and not be deleted from the email box.

Types of Cyber Crimes

There are different types of cybercrime having different penal laws in India

If someone’s personal information got stolen with the purpose of using it for financial purposes like applying for loans and credit card facilities. Such kind of crime comes under Identity Theft.

It happens when there is a threat of extortion or harm towards a person, state, or organization, Such crimes are known as Cyber Terrorism. Commonly, it is an attacking strategy that is well panned towards the government and computer system.

If a person below the age of teenage commits harassment, defamation, or insults someone with the help of the Internet, messaging, chatting platform, or any other social media platform then such an act would be amounting to cyberbullying, whereas such act committed by an adult shall be convicted under cyberstalking.

If there is any common cybercrime exists here, then it is called Hacking. If a person could able to access other computers and passwords without any prior consent and sing it for wrongful gain. Such crime will amount to Hacking.

While on a regular basis, we all have the rights on sharing information and opinions on digital platforms, but some statements may cause harm to the reputation of any person or organization, then such action will amount to defamation.

We all come across different pieces of materials and resources available on the Internet. When such data are published on a specific platform and copying/duplicating someone’s work without prior permission or any acknowledgment amounts to Copyright, which is a punishable offense.

The objective of the Information Technology Act in India is as follows:

It enables legal identification for all kinds of online transactions

It provides legal acknowledgment to e-signatures as a genuine signature for the acceptance of  e-agreements

It enables legal platform of maintaining accounting data in electronic form by banking personnel  as well as other organizations

Protection of online privacy and stopping cyber crimes

The Indian IT law updated the Reserve Bank of India Act and the Indian Evidence Act. With the evolution of cyberlaw, almost all online activities came under scrutiny. However, one thing about cyber law is that there are certain areas on which cybercrime laws in India do not apply such as:

• Negotiable Instrument being other than cheque
• Power of Attorney
• Will
• The contract for Sale or Conveyance of Immovable Property
• Central Government notified documents or transactions

Conclusion

Apart from all the cybercrimes prevailing in India, there are new frauds online through making phone calls on behalf of a reputed company and stealing all your personal details like card details, UPI, and OTP codes. Meanwhile, some are of making false claims like forwarding mail upon winning a lottery in crores, people who are desperately looking for earning money at home. Such things are not only dangerous but also creating negative implications on the digitization policies of the government. Therefore, it is important to recognize the frauds happening in the digital platform. Although, there are penal provisions which govern such crimes as mentioned in Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 which recognizes all the compter related offenses as well as the penalties.

If you’re victim of cyber crime, you can lodge your complaint online at

https://cybercrime.gov.in/

REFERENCES

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